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The Sustainable Hour no. 562 | Transcript | Podcast notes
The Sustainable Hour no. 562 takes us to Denmark where Mik Aidt is reporting back on what the green transition looks and feels like on the ground.
From coal-free months and an explosion of e-bikes and electric cars, to climate festivals and community-driven initiatives, we hear how trust, media, and politics shape a very different approach to climate action compared with Australia.
Colin Mockett OAM brings his global outlook – from Europe’s fire warnings and Antarctica’s accelerating ice melt, to Uruguay standing out as the world’s only country living within planetary limits. We also hear about the return of Forest Green Rovers, the world’s greenest football club.
. . .
In Denmark, the shift is visible:
• 56 per cent of new cars are electric – compared with 13 per cent in Australia
• three months of electricity with no coal – with full phase-out close
• a boom in cycling, e-bikes and cargo bikes
• a growing wave of climate and community festivals, such as the Fællesskab Festival (Togetherness Festival)
• free or even negative electricity prices due to oversupply of wind and solar
• investment in public transport electrification and district heating
• broad public consensus on urgent climate action
. . .
We also feature strong voices and stories:
Dale Vince calling for 100 per cent renewables, Bill McKibben’s tale of Pakistan’s solar revolution, ACF national ambassador Hannah Ferguson shares her message to the Labor Government: “You have a super majority. Do something!”, Greenpeace UK’s Oli Frost skewering anti-wind myths, and the youngest Australian senator Charlotte Walker reminding Parliament that net zero is non-negotiable for our generation’s future.
SONGS
Music this week premieres the new song “We Share the Sun”…
A luminous song of resilience and community, turning crisis into renewal and shared light. Featuring Dale Vince and Bill McKibben.
…and also includes the songs “The Green Transition” and “Starting From Today” – songs of climate action, community and determination.
→ More songs can be found on www.climatesafety.info/music
. . .
CONCLUDING STATEMENT
The message is clear: the green transition is not just underway, it is already happening. The only question is how quickly and how boldly we in Australia choose to join it. The thing we continue to stress is: that it is very much a choice. Remember the Stone Age didn’t end because they ran out of stones. They simply found better materials to use and then decided to drop their old ways and transition to the new.
“I think what’s really important to understand and a huge difference is that when I opened the TV in the night and I watched the TV news on different channels in the national mainstream news, both on commercial and public broadcasters, climate and weather is being mixed together in one pot. So you would hear what in Australia would be the weather report. But here in Denmark, the weather report also has news that are climate related.
These things are seen here as two sides of the same story. You hear the connection about a flooding or heat waves in southern part of Europe and so on. And it’s being explained in a climate context properly. That makes a huge difference when you see this being taken serious at the sort of educational level. So I think I really believe that that is why the Danes understand and acknowledge that action is necessary.”
~ Mik Aidt, The Sustainable Hour co-host, who is currently in Denmark, speaking of the different approach the Danes have to reducing carbon emissions
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We at The Sustainable Hour would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which we are broadcasting, the Wadawurrung People. We pay our respects to their elders – past, present, and emerging, and extend that respect to all First Nations people.
The traditional custodians lived in harmony with the land for millennia, nurturing it and thriving in often harsh conditions. Their connection to the land was deeply spiritual and sustainable. This land was invaded and stolen from them. It was never ceded. Today, it is increasingly clear that if we are to survive the climate emergency we face, we must learn from their land management practices and cultural wisdom.
True climate justice cannot be achieved until Australia’s First Nations people receive the justice they deserve. When we speak about the future, we must include respect for those yet to be born, the generations to come. As the old saying reminds us: “We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children.” It is deeply unfair that decisions to ignore the climate emergency are being made by those who won’t live to face the worst impacts, leaving future generations to bear the burden of their inaction.
“The Indigenous worldview has been marginalised for generations because it was seen as antiquated and unscientific and its ethics of respect for Mother Earth were in conflict with the industrial worldview. But now, in this time of climate change and massive loss of biodiversity, we understand that the Indigenous worldview is neither unscientific nor antiquated, but is, in fact, a source of wisdom that we urgently need.”
~ Robin Wall Kimmerer, weallcanada.org
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Transcript of The Sustainable Hour no. 562
Antonio Guterres, UN Chief: (00:00)
The sun is rising on a clean energy age.
Jingle:
The Sustainable Hour. For a green, clean, sustainable Geelong: The Sustainable Hour.
Tony Gleeson:
Welcome to The Sustainable Hour podcast. We’d like to acknowledge – as always – that we’re broadcasting from the land of the Waddawurong people. We pay tribute to their elders – past, present and those that earn that great honour in the future. We’re broadcasting from stolen land, land that was never ceded, always was and always will be First Nations land. In the millennia that they’ve spent nurturing both their community and their country they’ve gained a great deal of ancient wisdom, ancient wisdom that’s going to serve us well as we face up to the climate crisis.
Mik Aidt:
Imagine you were in a country where people were educated, where people understood that we are actually in danger, that this pollution that we’re putting out in the atmosphere is out of control and we need to stop it. In a country where people trusted the science and where there was absolutely no debate about whether the climate risk is real or not. There’s no Sky News banging on about how impossible it’s going to be to switch over to renewables. There’s no Barnaby Joyce clowns telling us to forget about cutting our carbon emissions to net zero by 2050. A country where more than half of all new cars coming out on the streets were electric and where the municipalities and governments and local governments invested heavily in buying electric buses and trains and it’s much more quiet in the streets.
And you know what? That country actually exists, and I am in it right now: Denmark. I’ve been here, actually, for some weeks and today in The Sustainable Hour, I’ll give you some glimpses of what it’s like here. But before that, as usual, first of all, let’s hear what’s been happening around the world with us. We have – as always – Colin Mockett OAM with his global outlook. Colin, what do you have for us today?
Colin Mockett’s Global Outlook:
Yes, thank you Mik. Well, our roundup this week, like you, begins in Europe, where the Weather Bureau Copernicus reported that fire emergencies are easing across most of southern Europe as well as on the Iberian Peninsula, France, Italy and the Balkans and in Greece.
In short, the weather conditions have changed, allowing the firefighters to control the hundreds of fires that are still burning in southern Europe. But that same Copernicus report warned that the very high to extreme fire conditions are now expected in Ireland, the United Kingdom and north-west Europe. That’s Belgium, the Netherlands, northern Germany, Poland, Denmark and parts of Sweden and Finland. You’re in the firing line, Mik, you might want to come back.
Large with very high to very extreme fire warning alerts are also issued along the Danube Basin in Austria, Hungary and Romania inside the coming weeks. So the current Indian summer that Europe is expecting has got a little bit more bite to it yet to come.
Now of concern, of course, is Antarctica, where the news released this week that large and abrupt changes unfolding in the icy continent pose profound implications for Australia and the Pacific nations. An international team led by Australia and including scientists from South Africa, Switzerland, France, Germany and the UK published a report in the respective journal Nature that predicts sea levels could rise by three metres and emperor penguins could become extinct, both in this century.
That was the headline report that has been in all the news in this hemisphere, but the true story is that Antarctica’s melt rate is accelerating as a result of climate change and the West Antarctic Ice Shelf is in severe risk of collapse. The ice shelf contains enough ice to raise sea levels by three metres and the tipping point for unstoppable ice loss from the Western Atlantic Antarctic ice sheet could be exceeded even under the best case emission reduction scenario, the paper warned.
So in other words, even if we all hit our targets and I don’t think there’s any nations apart from the Scandinavian ones that are on target. Even if we all hit it, that still the Antarctic ice shelf will be melting.
Author Dr Narell Abram, chief scientist at the Australian Antarctic Division, said such sea level rises would threaten the world’s coastal cities and communities and result in, quote: ‘catastrophic consequences for generations to come.’ Rapid change has already been detected across Antarctica’s ice, oceans and ecosystems. And this is set to worsen with every fraction of a degree of global warming, she said. The loss of Antarctic sea ice is another change that has a whole range of knock-on effects, including making the floating ice shelves around Antarctica more susceptible to ways driven collapse.
According to the peer-reviewed paper, is evidence that the natural behaviour of Antarctic sea ice has changed over the past decade, as thinning sea ice and warming oceans create self-perpetuating changes. A critical threshold for the collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet was estimated to be about 2 degrees of global average warming above pre-industrial temperatures, but a partial collapse could occur under lower temperatures, the paper reported.
Now to New York, where the UN’s 2025 Sustainable Development Goal Report was released. Highlights are that it found some cities are already running on solar 95 per cent of the time, and that energy that they’re using is cheaper than coal fired.
It also noted that thanks to dramatic advances in battery technology, solar power can now run continuously day and night, for up to 99 per cent of the year in some of the sunniest cities.
Now this isn’t just a forecast. From Hawaii to the United Arab Emirates, real 24h 365d solar plus storage systems are already powering homes, factories and even data centres. The report names Johannesburg, Mexico City and Hyderabad, where solar power paired with batteries can now deliver electricity for between 90 to 96 per cent of the time. That’s because battery prices have dropped 40 per cent in just one year, the report said. And the tech is safer, cleaner, and longer lasting than ever. New modelling shows the combination of solar and batteries is now cheaper than coal or nuclear in many cities, even cloudy northern UK cities like Birmingham.
But the standout winner appears to be Uruguay, which the report names as the only country that’s currently using Earth’s resources sustainably. Out of 195 countries, only one is statistically living within the planet’s means, the report said, and it itemises the reasons. Uruguay uses 98 per cent renewable energy in wind, solar and hydro that all those three dominate that nation’s grid. employs sustainable farming and prioritises small-scale regenerative agriculture. It also has strong social policies, education, health care and wages, support in a balanced economy.
And it matches this with strong environment leadership, protected natural areas, and a focus on biodiversity. And the report was scathing of the other 194 countries, most of which are, it said, and this is a direct quote from the report, most nations are burning through resources as if there’s a backup planet.
Now finally, I’ve been keeping this under wraps for a couple of weeks, but Forest Green Rovers, the world’s most environmentally friendly sports team, is back and it’s doing well. If you remember, the team missed promotion last season by a whisker, losing on penalties in the playoffs. But now with a new manager in Steve Cottrell and with a strengthened vegan policy, the team now takes its own vegan food to away matches. They’re currently top of the English National League One. That’s the fifth tier in their football league. That’s for the 2025-26 season. Now, that’s because they beat Halifax Town 2-1 away at the weekend. The Rovers now have 7 points from their 4 games that they’ve played, making it very early days but an encouraging end to this week’s global outlook.
. . .
Jingle
Tony: (10:59)
Thanks for that. Great to hear the Rovers are right up there. We see ourselves as the unofficial Aussie cheer squad leaders. We’ll continue and we will try to get them on, on the show, and see what they’re about at the time. Yeah, well, what’s he named? Dale Vince, the owner.
Colin:
He changed the manager after they didn’t get promotion and it was the fans all turned on him but I think he’ll be pretty popular again now.
Tony:
Yeah. At the top of the league again. Success tends to do that. Okay on with the show. Our guest today is no stranger to the sustainable hour. As we’ve said the last two or three weeks, Mik Aidt has been in his home country in Denmark. So we thought we’d get an insider’s view into what’s happening, what’s the latest in Denmark. Mik, so welcome to the Sustainable Hour as a guest for once.
Mik:
Thank you very much, Tony and Colin!
Tony:
What are you seeing, Mik? What’s impressed you about? There were comments earlier today that you were pretty impressed with what’s happening, so let’s drill down on them a bit.
Mik: (12:21)
I am impressed, I must say. And I say that as a common tourist, in a way. I’ve come here not to learn about sustainability or climate action or things like that. I’ve come here to visit family and do some work.
So that means the way I’m experiencing what Denmark is doing is just the normal way that people do it, which is what you see in the streets. It’s what when you open a newspaper, when you’re seeing the news in the evening on TV and so on. And the first thing, for instance, I noticed when I opened the newspapers is that there’s a lot going on in terms of activities. There’s festivals. There’s a climate festival coming here in the end of this week. Last week there was a major organic food festival in Copenhagen which gathered people from 40 different countries where they’re talking about organic food. And interestingly, there’s a lot of talk at the moment about a festival which has a name that’s difficult to translate. It’s called a Fællesskab Festival. And ‘Fællesskab’ is a word we don’t have in English. It means… if you can combine ‘togetherness’ and ‘community’, that’s maybe the closest you can get to what ‘Fællesskab’ means. So there’s a Togetherness Festival coming up soon – and people are talking quite a bit about that.
So that’s one thing – what you see in the newspapers. But obviously the first thing that strikes me is in the streets. Things are really, really quickly getting electrified here. You see cyclists everywhere. People have really jumped up on their bicycles. Of course, it’s summer in Denmark now, it’s warm and people just love cycling and not just on two wheels, but on three wheels, four wheels, all sorts of funny vehicles you would call them are riding on the cycle pathways, cargo bikes and so on. It’s really quite impressive. And you see, honestly, Teslas are everywhere. I was here a year ago and since then there must have been a huge sale of Teslas. Going around in the streets, you just see them everywhere. And not only Teslas of course, as I mentioned before, 56 per cent of all new cars that are sold are now electric in this country. And to compare that with Australia, in Australia, the figure is 13 per cent. So one out of 10 cars at the moment that’s being sold in Australia is electric. Here is almost six out of 10 cars that’s electric. And you can really feel that in the streets.
And maybe even more significantly, the news were out just last week. And this was like a historic, historical news that Denmark is getting off coal. Denmark has just had three months completely without coal in the electricity system. And that’s a country that, you know, just a couple of years ago was really relying on coal as part of the energy supply. Now it seems like they’re on track on phasing out coal completely within just the next three years. So there’s something for Australia to watch, I think. This is what it looks like when you live in the end of the age of fossil fuels.
Colin:
Hey, Mik, don’t go any further because that’s already thrown up three questions from me. Number one, what are they replacing coal with? Number two, are the bikes all pedal or are some of them electric? And number three, are people still using the sort of normal bus and trams and trains, public transport? Or have they just replaced all that with bikes for this summer?
Mik: (16:10)
In terms of what replaced the coal, solar is coming up very big in Denmark. It used to be wind. We used to be famous for being actually the inventors of the wind turbine in a way. You know, the companies like Vestas have been like pioneers in that field. And we have another big company selling wind turbines all over the world called Ørsted, which is actually state owned. But solar has moved in and there’s an interesting story there, Colin, about solar in Denmark – because Denmark actually now generates two thirds of its electricity from wind and solar. But the rapid growth that has been in renewable energy has led to an oversupply, and that’s causing record levels of negative electricity prices. Free energy, which means that the solar, what do we call them… farms, solar farms, are increasingly actually operating at a loss.
So that again has meant that the renewable energy investments are stalling. And this is seen as a major problem because the Danes are really ambitious about actually reaching net zero, not in 2050, but sooner. So while Denmark is drowning in free electricity, the game changer will be cheaper battery storage. And that’s coming in fast now. And that could be solving the problem and helping the green transition actually move forward, even if there are negative power prices.
But can you believe it? You know, this is actually reality. In the last half year, Denmark has seen 536 hours of negative electricity prices. Last year, in the full year of last year, it was 650 hours of negative electricity prices. And already in the first half year, we are up to 536. So that will be, if that continues, will be more than a thousand hours of free energy in the system here.
Colin: (18:09)
What’s the repercussions for that? Does this mean that they are no longer investing in solar panels? Are the solar panels on people’s roofs or are they in solar farms? And is there now a sort of a backlash against putting them on your roof because people are saying, ‘No, you don’t get paid for the electricity you make?’ What’s the consequence of what you’re talking about?
Mik:
It is solar farms we’re generally talking about, you know, where people are investing in solar as a business. You see very little, I mean, much less than in Australia of people putting solar on their own houses here. But there is a new trend though, because places like Ikea is beginning to sell solar panels that people can put up on their balconies and fences, put up on their garage and so on. And the cool thing about these Ikea solar panels is that not only do they look good, I think, but if you’re renter, you can take them with you when you move to some other place later on. You know, they’re flexible. So there is a small scale solar panel beginning to come up.
But I think the most of the solar that you see in Denmark is solar farms. And the consequences of that, Colin, is that the business people are much more reluctant to invest in more solar by now. It’s like the market is, the market is flooded.
So that is seen as a problem. I think it’s… well, I wouldn’t be complaining. The consumers here are actually getting cheaper electricity by the day. So from an Australian perspective, wow, what a country where people are actually experiencing free energy. Why don’t we hear about that in Australia?
. . .
SONG (21:23)
‘We Share the Sun’
[Intro]
If you want to find light
face the dark
Dance with your shadow
[Verse 1]
We’re walking through firestorms, floods and decay
Truth feels like ash blowing further away
But roots are growing where the sun don’t reach
In the cracks of despair, new hope starts to teach
[Pre-Chorus]
It’s not the end – it’s the turning ground
Where silence cracks and new voices sound
[Chorus]
Crisis is not destruction
It’s the compost of transformation
From the shadows, we rebuild trust
Neighbour by neighbour, we share the sun
[Verse 2]
Rooftops gleam where panels shine
Pedals turning down the petrol line
We’re planting change in every street
With garden beds and sharing of seeds
[Bridge]
The grassroots movement is growing
We’re slowing down to build what’s real
Time for laughter, time to heal
[Interlude]
[Chorus]
Crisis is not destruction
It’s the compost of transformation
From the shadows, we rise and reclaim
Neighbour by neighbour, we share the sun
[Outro]
If you want to find the light
face the dark
Dance with your shadow
There’s power in the soil
And fire in the heart
. . .
Spoken statements:
Dale Vince:
The only way we can solve the energy crisis is to switch to renewable energy, 100per cent.
Bill McKibben:
Solar panels in Pakistan. You could literally watch solar panels spreading like, you know, mushrooms after a rainstorm in the woods. They’re just buying them, laying them on the ground, pointing them at the sun. Diesel sales dropped 35 per cent last year in Pakistan, in one year. Those are the kind of numbers that changed the world.
Dale Vince:
We have enough wind and sun to power the entire country.
. . .
Bill McKibben – video clip on linkedin.com: (23:55)
The story that really just blew my mind was what happened in Pakistan over the last year or so. A year ago in Pakistan, energy analysts started saying something weird is happening because demand for electricity on the national grid is dropping. As you know, as an energy analyst, humans never use less energy. Demand number always goes up, as they say. So the fact that it was dropping was befuddling. What was happening here? And then good analysts started looking at pictures on Google Earth. And if you looked at the rooftops of Lahore or Karachi or Islamabad, you could literally watch solar panels spreading like, you know, mushrooms after a rainstorm in the woods. I mean, just the growth was literally week to week.
In the course of eight months last year, Pakistanis built the equivalent of half the country’s national electric grid by themselves without anyone, you know, and when I talked to people and said, how did people even like manage to do it? Obviously the key component was cheap Chinese solar panels coming across the border with China. But how did they put them up? Well, it turns out that there are three or 400 great TikTok videos with Hindustani music in the background where people explain how to snap this stuff together and how to put it up. And the bottom line there, the number that killed me was that, I mean, I’ve spent some time in rural Asia. So I know that the soundtrack of kind of village Asia is diesel generators humming along to pump those deep tube wells that were the residue of the green revolution in the sixties. That diesel is usually the biggest input for farmers. It’s expensive. Farmers were the first people to really start doing this in Pakistan, they often lack the money to build the steel supports that we’re used to seeing for solar panels. They’re just buying them, laying them on the ground, pointing them at the sun. Diesel sales dropped 35 per cent last year in Pakistan, in one year. Those are the kind of numbers that changed the world.
. . .
Dale Vince – video clip on linkedin.com: (26:17)
The only way we can solve the energy crisis and the price crisis permanently is to switch to renewable energy, 100per cent.
Nigel Farage:
Well hang on a second, that’s all well and good, but massive subsidies have gone into renewables, particularly wind farms.
Dale:
In the past. So right now onshore wind and solar need no public money. If the government were to change the planning regime to give them an equal footing to other forms of energy, we could build all the energy that we need. We have enough wind and sun to power the entire country. This year…
Nigel:
When the wind blows…
Dale:
That’s a balancing issue. And national grids say that we can run the country 100 per cent on renewables. So I think there’s some credibility there. This year we’ll spend £150 billion on our electricity bills. It’s madness, it’s ten times what they used to be. If we were powered by the wind and the sun we’d be spending £15 billion and that’s crippling our economy.
. . .
Mik:
Now to the two other questions you had about which kind of bikes you see in the streets and also whether people use public transport. I would say about the bikes, there’s really a variety of bikes, but a lot of them are electric. I don’t have the figures, but it seems to me like probably a third or half of all the bikes that you see in the streets have a battery on the back.
And that means also that people are moving much faster than you’re used to. You actually got to watch out when you come near a bike path because there’s there’s fast speed on these these bicycles there. But also I see really a massive increase in the use of bikes that are looking different than bikes. In particular, cargo bikes where, for instance, you can transport another person in front. You have like a box and it’s big enough for people to sit there.
And you see a lot of people transporting each other, transporting kids, but also transporting adults. And the last one about public transport. There is a lot of investment in public transport in Denmark, and it’s already a country that’s pretty well connected with the public transport system. And for instance, you’re hearing a train just passing outside my window where I’m talking now. But these trains are being turned into electric trains.
So they’re putting up chords, wires above the trains and they run on electricity instead of diesel. So that’s happening big time. I can tell you that the town that I’m in, which is my birth town, Aarhus, is really keen on seeing, getting the cars out of the town and instead just relying on public transport in the center of town. Just like we see in Melbourne, you know, where the tram system in the inner city, is free. Similar ideas are coming up here in Denmark.
Colin:
Two impediments here, Mik, are: the government’s lack of will. The evidence of that is continuing to approve fossil fuel projects and also: media, mainstream media who continually talk down the transition. How is Denmark on those two spheres?
Mik:
I think what’s really important to understand and a huge difference is that when I opened the TV in the night and I watched the TV news on different channels in the national mainstream news, both on commercial and public broadcasters, climate and weather is being mixed together in one pot. So you would hear what in Australia would be the weather report. But here in Denmark, the weather report also has news that are climate related.
These things are seen here as two sides of the same story. You hear the connection about a flooding or heat waves in southern part of Europe and so on. And it’s being explained in a climate context properly. That makes a huge difference when you see this being taken serious at the sort of educational level. So I think I really believe that that is why the Danes understand and acknowledge that action is necessary.
And they are even, I think, taking it to the next level where they’re beginning to ask, okay, if we have to change the system, how can we change it in a way where it makes our lives better, our lives more happy? This was actually a question asked at this organic summit that was in Copenhagen last week where I read a newspaper article about it and someone had been asking and there was a discussion about how should we change the system to make life happy, someone said.
And that’s the next level, isn’t it? Where we’re not just talking about it as a necessity, something we need to do and it’s expensive, we’re complaining, but we’re beginning to look at where does it actually improve our lives? And how do we benefit from changing the system?
Colin:
Well, you can start by going to the Togetherness Festival, Mik. Look, you’ll notice when you get back, you’ve been in Denmark for the past three weeks. I reckon over the past three weeks, must have, we’ve seen a similar change on Geelong’s roads that you’ve noticed in Copenhagen. Only the difference is we’re not getting people on bikes. We’re getting more and more people in giant American utes that are so big, they’re bigger than the supermarket car parks and they’re getting people angry and motorists are wild because they’re too big for the small 1930s roads that we’ve got. But that doesn’t stop people buying them.
Basically, it was the Morrison government, if my memory serves me right, that changed the tax structure to make big utes cheaper comparatively than the standard Toyota Corolla. And so that’s why, and you know, I’m saying things like these are the things, but this is the trailer of the future and stuff like that. Now, mums are dropping their kids off at school in great big RAM utes. And even, you know, the school traffic is jammed with the things. So we’ve gone the complete opposite way to Denmark.
That’s just a comment, that’s not a question. My question is, right now, it’s late summer coming into autumn there. When is the time when most electricity is used? I’m assuming it would be during the winter. In that case, the problem that you’re getting with the too cheap electricity is going to dissolve, isn’t it? Because there’s not going to be the same amount of sunshine and there’s going to be more demand for the power.
Mik:
Yes, that’s correct. It requires quite a bit of energy to heat the houses here because it does get really below zero outside. However, the Danes have also in the major cities come up with a system where water is running in pipes and being exchanged – going from one house to the next and heating up the houses simply by tubes running through the houses with warm water. And the energy for this heating this water is increasingly coming from waste energy, let’s say from a factory that’s going to produce something industrial. And there’s a lot of waste heat that waste heat is then used to warm the water. And, and so there’s a bit of recycling of energy, you could say where the houses are increasingly being heated by very cheap energy that was going to just go waste otherwise.
And the other thing is there’s some geothermal experiments happening right here in Aarhus, where they’re beginning to drill like 60 metres down where there’s hot, hot water down there, and then take that water up and heat the houses with that. There’s two places here in Aarhus where they’re beginning these tests on taking up the heat from the underground. that’s just work in progress, I would say. They haven’t really shown yet that it’s a game changer, but it could be.
Tony: (34:56)
Mik, you’ve mentioned Aarhus a couple of times now and that’s it, it’s your home city. How is it viewed amongst other cities in Denmark? Like is it a leader in the field of sustainability, just midfield? What’s its whole approach?
Mik:
I think if you ask the people at the Municipality here, they certainly would like to become the leader. But Copenhagen is very far ahead in many aspects. So there is a bit of competition. Aarhus is the second largest city in Denmark. So, you know, the largest city is Copenhagen, the capital. And then there’s Aarhus. And these two cities in a way have always been competing on many levels. Certainly, I can remember when I grew up, you know, with culture and music. Aarhus was trying to claim that ‘this is the capital of culture’, ‘capital of music’, and so on. And I know the ambition is there.
However, there’s also, and this was a real shock that came out from the University of Aarhus just last week, which was a study that showed that the beech forests, and when I say ‘beach’, it’s spelled B-E-E, beech, these trees that are very tall and in springtime they’re incredibly light green, beautiful trees. They are in trouble. They’re actually feeling the heat from climate change. And these are iconic trees. They have been celebrated in songs, they are part of our national identity. And now this university study tells us that these trees are not going to be here by the end of this century unless the world very, quickly now decides to turn things around and do something about our air pollution, our carbon emissions.
To imagine a Denmark without beach forests is like, I think it’s very close to how Australians feel when they hear that the Great Barrier Reef is in trouble and dying. It touches you emotionally. So last week there was some beech forest grief when I talked with people who had heard about this report. So that’s another aspect as well. You know, our iconic beach trees have been given a death sentence. That doesn’t feel very good. It just adds to that feeling here in Denmark that we need to do something. And there’s a general consensus about that. I can tell you that there’s a general consensus. People are on board and not just like a little group of climate activists, but the vast majority of the Danes are on board in one way or the other. They are making changes at a personal level and they’re supporting that the politicians invest in this and spend public money on the green transition.
. . .
SONG (38:06)
‘The Green Transition’
[Intro]
Oooooohhhh… ohhhhhh
The world is turning, faster than before
Between lightness and love, and power and lies…
[Verse 1]
I’ve seen the floods, I’ve felt the storms,
Watched the news as cities drowned.
Want to shut off, can’t watch this breakdown,
It’s hard to see we can turn this ship around.
[Pre-Chorus]
They say it’s too late, they say ‘just wait’,
But I won’t watch it wash away.
I choose the truth, I change my ways,
I’ve signed up and, I’m ready to join.
[Chorus]
The Green Transition is inevitable
From home to work, from town to town.
Solar’s shining, wind is strong,
The air is clean, life is fun.
[Verse 2]
They call them ‘natural’ – disasters untamed,
But I know better, I know who’s to blame.
Coal, gas, oil – the damage they do,
But I’m the one to choose, I know what’s true.
[Pre-Chorus]
They said ‘just go slow, don’t shake the ground’,
But I refuse to back down.
Not someday, no, right here, right now,
I make it right, I make it count.
[Chorus]
The Green Transition is inevitable
From land to sea, around the world.
I speak the shift, I share the news,
A great renewal, a bold decision.
[Bridge – Action Mode]
I build, I vote, I call out the lies,
We shape the rules, we change the tide.
It’s not impossible, it’s on the rise,
A world reborn before our eyes.
[Final Chorus – Collective Power]
Welcome to the Green Transition!
It’s in our hands, it’s underway.
No more waiting, the time is now,
We rise together – this is the way.
Statements:
Australia has called for a phase out of fossil fuels.
You should lead. You should lead this revolution.
. . .
Colin:
What is the make-up of the federal and the state parliament where you are, Mik? Have you got Green members and Green senators? Have you got a Conservative party of any strength at all?
Mik:
Denmark is very different from Australian politics in the sense that we don’t have two major parties. We have a big diversity of parties, like 10 different parties in parliament, and they’re all negotiating. And typically to form a government, you need to have at least two or three parties that come together in a coalition, and then they run the country. And it’s been like that for a century here. That’s completely normal. So what’s being called a hung parliament in Australia is just how we know democracy in Denmark. And yes, there are conservative parties and there are sort of middle of the road parties and there are left-wing parties, but we don’t have a specifically green party. We do have a very tiny climate party actually that didn’t make it into parliament last time. And we do have some parties, especially one called the alternative that have very strong climate policies. They’re still small, but who knows? We had a big climate election, it was called back in 2019, that’s six years ago, which really gave the politicians a mandate to begin to invest in wind power and solar power and all these things. And for instance, electric cars here are not much more expensive than normal petrol cars, which is of course the reason that people buy electric.
Colin: (42:47)
And at the moment, the power grid, is that state owned or is that all private industry?
Mik:
It has been privatised similar to how we’ve seen it in Australia. However, some of the major electricity providers are still, like, half state owned and so on. So it’s a little bit of a mix I would say.
Colin:
So basically there’s not too big a difference politically between the two nations. The big difference is… hey, wait a minute, there’s one other big thing that could be it. News International! Who runs your major newspapers in Denmark?
Mik:
Each newspaper has its own owner.
Colin:
And are any of them Rupert Murdoch’s?
Mik: (43:38)
To my knowledge, no.
Colin:
And is there a sort of a Danish equivalent to the ABC?
Mik:
Very much so, yes. It’s called the Danish Broadcasting Corporation.
Colin:
Do many people use it?
Mik:
Yes, yes, I would say that’s quite common, and they have a chunk of the population listening to or watching them every day.
Colin: (44:02)
So that could be the big difference because it strikes me the big difference is the will of the people. That’s right. The people of Denmark have, what shall we say, encompassed the whole ideal of climate change and they’re quite happy to change their own behaviour. Whereas in Australia we’re encouraged not to by the press and the media.
Mik:
And I think, Colin, what’s really deep down behind all of this is that the Danes are brought up in a spirit of trust. Trust is incredibly important in the Danish society. And it goes a thousand years back to, this is something I have learned, that the Vikings were the inventors of this society where people actually trust each other. And trust means that when you grow up, you trust, you know, your teacher. You trust your parents. Eventually you trust the government and you trust the scientists, not the least. So I think that could be a big difference. When I live in Australia, I sense this sort of mistrust in many aspects of our lives. We don’t really trust our politicians, that’s for sure. We don’t trust the journalists either.
Colin:
Each year the Readers Digest Association holds a poll on the most trusted people and the least trusted people. And the three people that are least trusted, the ones that come below used car dealers are real estate agents, politicians and journalists. And that’s standard in Australia. It’s been that way for at least 30 years. Since I used to be a journalist, it used to upset me because I used to try very hard to be as honest as I could. But yes, you’re correct. And you’re saying that the Indian market’s not that way at all.
Mik:
I think if the Danes saw people like Barnaby Joyce, they would laugh. They would say: ‘Is he for real?’ And when they… if they listen to something like Sky News banging on about, it’s… you know, literally spreading lies about how expensive or how terrible renewables are… You know, yes, we do have deniers in Denmark just as well, but honestly, you don’t hear about them. They are not in the public sphere.
Tony:
Yeah, I think Colin nailed it when he said the public will is there, maybe because of that trust. But they realise what needs to happen. And when they get messages like the iconic beech trees are dying because of what’s happening in the atmosphere, that’s the thing that they trust. It can’t be cheated. No matter whether you say you’re meeting your targets or not, the atmosphere knows what’s going up there.
Mik:
That’s right. And always, I think the [Danish] media is careful to… when they deliver bad news, negative news, about heat waves and droughts and all this, they always come up with a bit of solutions as well. That’s really… I sense that as a responsibility of a public broadcaster: to not just leave people there with the doom and gloom, but actually to come with that. For instance, when the news was up about the beech forest, there was also at the end someone saying, ‘They haven’t died yet, not just yet. And with stronger climate action, we can actually still save the beech forest.’
There’s always that element to it. And this is really important. That’s what keeps people working, working harder on trying to stop the pollution and get into something that doesn’t harm the climate.
Tony: (47:56)
Is there a climate movement as such, Mik?
Mik:
There is a growing climate movement in Denmark. If I look back 10 years, it’s been very weak compared to the Australian climate movement. However, for instance, this big summit that’s coming up end of this week here in Denmark shows that there’s a very strong collaboration, for instance, from the business sector. So the public sector, the business sector, and the climate activists are actually talking together and having these kind of summits or conferences and places where they all discuss over two days what needs to get done and how we can speed up solutions and cutting the emissions.
So I would say there’s a strong movement in Denmark, but it’s different. It’s less of people going in the streets with banners and it’s more like actually in the business world and in the offices of both politicians and municipalities and businesses that are talking together with the community about new solutions, what can be done.
Jingle:
Scott Morrison, former Australian prime minister:
This is coal. Don’t be scared, don’t be afraid!
Sheldon Whitehouse, American Senator:
At the heart of this is a battle between truth and science – and power and lies.
Jingle
Mik: (49:33)
That’s all we could fit in one hour where we didn’t even have a guest, but just the three of us talking about Denmark, in this case. I do have actually some guests coming up from Denmark who I’ve been speaking with. So we’ll be dropping some interviews in the next weeks and months, maybe – the thinkers and the doers speaking about what’s happening in Denmark. Don’t just take my word for it! That’s coming up in the following weeks, but isn’t it incredible how fast an hour goes when you’re just talking about something that I know we’re all three very curious and investigative about?
Colin:
Well, one of the things that’s been in our media over the course of the last week has been a sort of pushback from right-wing councillors to undo the climate emergency things that we pushed very much about, I don’t know, what, three or four years ago. They’re now saying that was an overreaction. And the councillors who got voted in on back to basics. That’s now become a sort of a, what shall we say, a code word for let’s go soft on the climate because we’re going to move back to conservatism.
Mik:
And Colin, can I just give a plug here, once again, for the interview which we aired at The Pulse two weeks ago with Joseph Gelfer from the United Kingdom? – who speaks, I think, very cleverly about that maybe that’s not so bad as we think – you know, giving up on the ‘climate emergency’ narrative at this stage. What he suggests is that we simply need to even stop talking about ‘climate’ and instead talk about things that people relate to, their health, cost of living, nature, these kinds of topics that matter to them. Because climate is behind it all, but you don’t need to put it up front. So instead of fighting on the barricades for protecting the ‘climate emergency’ phrase, let’s talk about the real things that matter to people – and try to win them. And that includes not only the people who live in our council, but also, as you said, the right wing counsellors. I think if you look at what ‘climate’ is, if you take away the lies, it is a threat to everything we love, everything we hold dear. And that’s the story that we all need to come together around. It should be possible, but we might have to change our rhetorics.
Colin:
Well, you go to the Togetherness Festival and tell us how it worked.
Mik:
Hahaha! I’ll see if I can sign up for it. I’m afraid I will be out of the country by the time it runs. It’s on the 6th and 7th of September, where as we talked about last week, there’s also some interesting things happening in Geelong as well as in Melbourne. So that will be a busy weekend both in Denmark and in Geelong, Australia.
Tony:
Yep. Thanks for that, Mik. Really appreciate the chat.
Mik:
Thank you. And we’ve actually reached the B-section of The Sustainable Hour. What are we going to be today? I’d say: ‘Be together.’
Colin:
Be together.
Tony:
With friendship. Be united together with friendship.
. . .
SONG
‘Starting From Today’
[Verse 1]
Looking at your face right now
As you scroll through the headlines
I see the worry in your eyes
About the world we leave behind
And I know you’re wondering
If anyone will make it right
But baby, let me tell you something
That keeps me up at night
There’s still time to change the way
Things are going day by day
And when you feel like giving up
Remember what I say
I can be that difference
I can be that change
I can be that difference
Starting from today
Dad, I’ve seen the videos
Of how things used to be
Clear skies and clean waters
It’s hard to believe
But I’m not just sitting here
Waiting for a miracle
Got my friends beside me now
We’re making it possible
Every small step counts, they say
Little changes pave the way
When it seems too much to bear
Listen close, I swear
I can be that difference
I can be that change
I can be that difference
Starting from today
We rise together
Hand in hand we’ll find a way
We rise together
Every choice we make today
Shapes tomorrow’s way
I can be that difference
I can be that change
I can be that difference
Starting from today
We rise together
Starting from today
. . .
ACF national ambassador Hannah Ferguson – Facebook video clip
“My message to Labor: You have a super majority. Do something!”
. . .
Charlotte Walker, Australia’s Youngest Senator speaking in Parliament: (57:57)
…where all I can say is: are you kidding? I speak not only for myself, but as an advocate for younger Australians who are facing an uncertain future. The motion put forward by Senator Hanson to scrap Net Zero indicates a severe lack of knowledge and a complete disregard for the future of our generation, the future of our country. Without a Net Zero target, there will be no Australian farmers, businesses or industries to support us. Net zero is waking up to a reality that Senator Hanson has not been able to grasp. In fact, Senator Hanson seems to be hell-bent on exacerbating all of the consequences of climate change.
. . .
Oli Frost, Greenpeace UK – Instagram video clip:
Wind turbines are actually terrible for the environment. Speaking of Greenpeace UK, you might not expect me to say that. And the reason you might not expect it is, well, it’s not true. The thing is, when someone says something vague like, it’s bad for the environment, usually they’ve identified some environmental issues. But are they really telling you the whole picture?
I mean, take, for example, the argument that wind turbines can kill birds, which is bad. But it ignores the fact that there’s a lot of things that kill birds. Windows, for example, kill over a billion birds each year, but no one complains about windows. And by the way, climate change, that we’re trying to avoid with the wind turbines, well that threatens millions of animal species with extinction, so it’s kind of a bit worse.
Or someone might criticise wind turbines for requiring energy to build, but somehow ignore the fact that they’ll produce more energy, or that coal mines and oil rigs also require energy to build. Now at this point someone might helpfully suggest switching to squeaky clean nuclear energy, maybe pointing out the current issue with disposing of wind turbine blades, but ignoring the fact that nuclear waste will be dangerously radioactive for up to hundreds of thousands of years.
And lastly, someone might say that wind turbines are just ugly, ignoring the fact that pretty much all power plants are fugly. 80 per cent of the public are actually in favour of onshore wind. I mean, personally, I think they look pretty stunning.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Events we have talked about in The Sustainable Hour
Events in Victoria
The following is a collation of Victorian climate change events, activities, seminars, exhibitions, meetings and protests. Most are free, many ask for RSVP (which lets the organising group know how many to expect), some ask for donations to cover expenses, and a few require registration and fees. This calendar is provided as a free service by volunteers of the Victorian Climate Action Network. Information is as accurate as possible, but changes may occur.
Petitions
→ List of running petitions where we encourage you to add your name
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