Nina Dodge, writes from Copenhagen where she is representing the Politics & Prose Climate Action Project at parallel, public climate meetings and events in Denmark and Sweden, from Dec. 3 – Dec. 14.
DENMARK’S ISLANDS BRING ENERGY SOLUTIONS TO THE ISLANDS OF MAINE
by Leila Bisharat, Board, Island Institute
Dec. 2009
Islands with families that still fish, build boats and farm are under threat of disappearing everywhere. Only 14 inhabited islands remain off the coast of Maine. Once there were hundreds. Dependence on high-priced energy from the mainland has them in a stranglehold. These are the proud maritime centers where wind once powered great vessels across the seas. Maine’s strong offshore winds and currents made these communities viable 100 years ago, when sailboats carried granite, timber, livestock, people, food and vital supplies.
Foreclosed fishing vessels and lobster boats now litter the coast, too expensive to operate. Today islanders wait for barges to bring oil and scrimp to pay double to quadruple mainland prices at the landing. Electricity prices on Monhegan Island produced from diesel-fed generators are 70 cents per kilowatt hour, making it a community with one of the highest power costs anywhere in the country.
The Island Institute (www.islandinstitute.org), based in Rockland Maine, is helping Maine island communities reach out to find survival strategies forged elsewhere that will work locally. The Danish Island of Samso, 12 miles off the coast of Jutland, Denmark, and its spokesperson Soren Hermansen with his wife Malene (www.energiakademiet.dk), brought new ideas of the possible to Chebeague Island this past year.
Hermansen, a native islander and the son of a farmer in Samso, had spearheaded the effort there. Maine lobstermen, boatbuilders, carpenters, teachers, shop-owners and a farmer gathered on Chebeague to listen to him, but with tough-minded skepticism. This was just one of the Hermansens’ stops along the coast. They came across the water, standing behind the helm on a raw day in early spring when boats were out of the water. People had time then to gather, listen and argue over fish chowder provided in the local boatyard.
Soren looked these tough islanders in the eye, and with a twinkle in his own, said “I know just what you are thinking – what does he know – we’ll just listen and then shoot this all down”. He addressed one woodsman in the group and said “I can see what’s on your mind – ‘Has he ever felled a tree?’. You’re a dead-ringer for my neighbor Hermann who said ‘This crazy idea of energy-independence from the mainland will never work’. “ “Well, it has, and let me tell you how”.
The keys, it turned out, were community buy-in and trying out different technologies where everyone could have a share: small wind turbines, to larger and larger ones, solar panels, connecting houses in pods for shared heating systems, bio-fuels, energy-efficient wood stoves. New energy lowered costs and produced new jobs – and everyone literally could have a share in the investment. But it was wind power that became king. Shareholders in Samso’s off-shore turbines attracted mainland investors, who like to come out to visit ‘their turbines’, thus injecting a new form of eco-tourism into the island economy. “The only thing we couldn’t solve was the motor vehicles. But your country has to do that”.
Across all Maine’s islands, there has been a flurry of activity, working on alternatives. The proudest symbol of a recent breakthrough stands on Vinalhaven Island where today three great wind turbines move majestically above the tall pines overlooking the sea. (see photo below). Fox Islands Electric (www.foxislandselectric.com), the local power company for Vinalhaven and North Haven Islands, had been studying the potential for alternative energy for its members, including investigations of the islands’ wind, solar and tidal potential. The Island Institute had been providing technical support. The inspired risk-taking has now made the Fox Islands the largest community‐based wind project on the East Coast. The Islanders have become renewable energy leaders by coming together to lower their own electricity bills and move toward a clean energy future. Just last month, November 2009, the community commissioned three 1.5 MW General Electric wind turbines, serving as a strong example that the vast wind power potential of the region can power communities, create jobs, and clean the air. And a lot more is in the works off the Maine coast. Watch the waters of Monhegan Island for the off-shore wind power research being led by Habib Dagher and his team from the University of Maine, announced on December 15th 2009.
- Article commissioned by Nina Dodge, Politics & Prose Climate Action Project, for “Bringing Copenhagen Home” website
HOUR OF RECKONING
APPROACHES - COP15 GOAL RECAP
Tens of thousands of representatives from official delegations, nongovernmental organizations and corporations now flood COP15’s conference halls, and more would be here had accreditation not closed mostly months ago! The scene is chaotic. A lobbyist for a US paper company working to “go green” said he was nearly trampled by media at Lisa Jackson’s EPA briefing on greenhouse gases and public health last Wednesday.
As seen all over the news, this weekend’s mostly peaceful protest demonstration was huge. Both in its participation, and in the pall the police over-action cast in many Danish quarters who fear a severe erosion in the country’s civil liberties. Another major complement to COP15 this weekend was the “Bright Green” trade fair which featured cutting edge Clean Tech exhibits from all over the world: http://www.brightgreen.dk/programme.html.
Today, 5000 press members, 9000 twitterers, hundreds of film directors, and heavy security are poised as 110 world leaders’ advance teams arrive for the final COP15 final negotiations on Friday.
According to the [British newspaper] Guardian's correspondent, the world media placing the summit high on their list of priorities is proof of how climate concerns have climbed to the top of the political agenda.
The following review of COP15 goals from COP15’s website www.cop15.dk provides a good benchmark for the negotiations:
Rather than getting every small detail of a new global climate treaty done in Copenhagen, UN climate chief Yvo de Boer hopes the conference will reach agreements on four political essentials.
Michael von Bülow: 16/03/2009 10:30
The
UN climate conference in Copenhagen in December this year may not yield a new
global climate treaty with every minor detail in place. But hopefully it will close
with agreements on four political essentials, thereby creating a clarity the
world – not least the financially struck business world – needs.
The wish for clarity is expressed by Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), in an interview
with Environment & Energy Publishing (E&E). According to Yvo de Boer,
the four essentials calling for an international agreement in Copenhagen are:
“If Copenhagen can deliver on those four points I’d be happy,” says Yvo de
Boer.
He sees a need to get something signed and agreed in Copenhagen, but he thinks
it will be very difficult to get every final, small detail of a whole new
treaty done. The new climate treaty will be replacing the Kyoto Protocol which
was adopted in Kyoto, Japan, in December 1997 and entered into force on 16
February 2005.
The Kyoto Protocol which sets binding targets for the reduction of greenhouse
gas emissions has been signed and ratified by 184 parties of the UN Climate
Convention. One notable exception is the United States, and Yvo de Boer is “really
happy” to see the US back in the international climate change process and that
the US is also engaging domestically in the process.
Read More …
http://en.cop15.dk/news/view+news?newsid=876
“HOPENHAGEN!”
Copenhagen’s United Nations Climate Change Conference is huge for Denmark, one of the biggest international events ever on Danish soil, and the country is committed. Referred to as “COP15”(www.cop15.dk),its signs are on train platforms, in elementary schools, on Denmark’s most remote islands. A huge inflated globe in the city’s center reads “Hopenhagen.”
Monday opened a new phase in the formal global approach to work out new agreements on the world’s climate crisis. Expectations are mixed. As of yesterday, “no deal will be sealed” prevailed, but major progress was anticipated. Obama’s decision to participate in the final deliberations has been a source of widely expressed relief. Some rumors of a positive US surprise have floated ... even before the news of EPA’s pronouncement on emissions reached Copenhagen last night.
Running in tandem with the global forum are events focused on problem solving from the bottom, up: how local jurisdictions, national government and the European Union deal with meeting the climate goals and emissions quotas they have assigned to themselves, often in healthy competition with each other.
Denmark’s initiatives, richly showcased at the Copenhagen Climate Exchange last week (http://www.cphco2009.dk/), are often at the cutting edge. As one Dane put it: dealing with climate issues plays into Denmark’s practical approach of seeing problems as engineering challenges, how you make viable and affordable solutions, with a high quality design.
The UN’s COP15 may be huge for Denmark, but Denmark is also huge as a leader in solutions for the world!
From: Nina Dodge, Copenhagen, 12-08-09
COP15 - Copenhagen Climate Change Conference, Dec.
2009
…Downtown Copenhagen’s spirit is doubly festive: Christmas and winter solstice along with the opening of COP15 (Copenhagen Climate Summit:www.cop15.dk). The huge “Hopenhagen” globe lights up mid afternoon in the winter dark. The central square’s Christmas tree this year outgreens most, with its low energy lights are powered by 15 bicycles.
A “green” train brought 400 European delegates into Copenhagen from Brussels on Sunday – offsetting only symbolically the huge carbon footprint of the many hundreds burning jet fuel to attend.
High security surrounds the COP15’s conference site, an expansive low structure close to Copenhagen’s center, in a new development hub joining Denmark to Sweden via a major new suspension bridge.
The formal conference deliberations are under United Nations auspices. In addition to delegates participating from all over the world, thousands of emissaries, from the smallest community groups to the largest environmental associations and corporations, have come as non governmental witnesses, to deliver their messages in parallel meetings and exchanges.
Yesterday’s thick entrance line for these non governmental participants averaged two hours all day long outside the conference center’s security gates. Hundreds filed patiently, cheerful international exchange animating the lines.
From the Namibian delegates on the subway, to German carbon traders in the waiting line, the consensus has been that “the atmosphere won’t benefit sufficiently,” and that no treaty “deal will be sealed” at COP15.Largely on the assumption that Obama cannot commit further than Congress on climate goals and policy.
But there is a sense that important progress will be made. Perhaps the EPA’s surprise intervention last night will allow this step of the global process a better chance?