Georgia Clark, Government News
Summary
The involvement of local government has been essential to Swedish city’s remarkable carbon emissions reduction success, experts say.
It calls itself “the greenest city in Europe.”
Växjö, a city in southern Sweden’s Kronoberg County, achieved a stunning 17 per cent emissions reduction in just one year, and since implementing a suite of policies in the early 1990s has slashed its carbon emissions by more than half.
A local district heating system that replaces fossil fuels with biomass energy like food waste and waste wood makes up 90 per cent of the city’s energy, while a key scheme taxes emissions and funds carbon-reduction projects.
The promotion of sustainable transport options like cycling has contributed to the city’s carbon reductions, while 25 per cent of the energy for transport and work machinery comes from renewable energy.
The municipality’s energy supply is now 67 per cent renewable, with a goal of going completely fossil-fuel free by 2020.
Full Article
Continue Reading
#News#DistrictHeating#Biomass#EmissionsReduction#LocalPolicy#Sweden#Australia