Green Nirvana? (Samsø DENMARK) - 22nd November 2009
Not far from the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, is the Danish
island of Samsø, which thinks it has the answers to tackling
climate change that everyone else can learn from.
The island won a government competition in 1997 to become a model
renewable energy community. At that point, it relied entirely on oil
and coal imported from the mainland.
Now it has wind turbines providing all of the island’s
electricity, with the excess sold back to the Danish mainland; and 75%
of the island’s heating comes from solar power and biomass
systems.
The move has the support of the conservative locals… most
own shares in windfarms, and one farmer even produces fuel from rape
seed oil to run his car and tractor. Factoring in the green power it
exports, the Samsø Energy Academy estimates the island has
now reduced its carbon footprint by an incredible 170%.
George Negus visits Samsø and asks how it’s been
done, if more places should be following its lead and how its lessons
can be learned in different communities around the world.
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