Word: greenes
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...turning that research into reality was not just generous government aid, but the fact that Denmark stayed with it. While countries like the U.S. let tax credits for renewable energy wax and wane, smothering infant green industries in the crib, Denmark looks to the long term. In the 1990s, the government inaugurated tariffs that required utilities to offer 10-year fixed-rate contracts for wind power. That sort of security led to a rapid expansion of wind power at home - the country has more than 5,200 turbines producing in excess of 3,100 MW of electricity - and helped firms...
...first European nation to sign up for the innovative electric car model promoted by start-up company Better Place, which plans to construct a network of charging stations throughout the small country. Then there's the way Danes build. Denmark doesn't quite lead the world in green building, but it is expert in certain materials. Take VKR, founded during World War II as a window manufacturer. Through its subsidiaries the firm now markets efficient skylights and vertical windows, and in recent years has shifted into rooftop solar heating. Government policies and strict regulations have helped here too. "The mega...
...fruits of that investment and innovation are best tasted in an unlikely place that has emerged as the symbol of Denmark's greenness: Samso island. Located in the Kattegat Strait, Samso (pop. 4,300) was far from cutting-edge when, in 1997, it won a government competition to become a model for how a community can run on renewable energy. At the time Samso was entirely dependent on oil and coal, both of which it imported from the mainland. A little more than a decade later Samso is effectively carbon negative, producing more than 100% of the electricity it needs...
...there is something special in the way that Samso's residents - and Danes as a whole - have adapted to 21st-century realities about energy and the environment. Hermansen credits the Danish tendency to organize in groups, which helps reinforce support for going green. "To us, going for lower energy use is like a sport," he says. That sense of communal competition is shared by Denmark's Scandinavian neighbors, and may help explain why countries like Sweden and Finland are also among Europe's greenest. On a regional level, cooperation is a necessary component of Denmark's success - the Nordic nations...
...carbon-cutting targets. (Rasmussen, an avid cyclist, compares the Copenhagen summit to the Tour de France's punishing Alpe d'Huez climbing stage - which he tried for himself last summer.) But the country does have the power of its example, showing that you can stay rich and grow green at the same time. "Denmark has proven that acting on climate can be a positive experience, not just painful," says NRDC's Schmidt. The real pain could come from failing to follow in their footsteps...