More changes are needed than the municipal enterprise can create

Climate change is enormous in the world and gradually noticeable in Denmark in relation to violent storm surges, water rises due to everyday rain and oxygen starvation in the Danish marine environment.

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We have just entered 2025 and we need momentum to believe that it is realistic to deliver on ambitions.

But who really owns the climate challenge?

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Is it the national politicians with their 2030 and 2050 climate plans? Private business and confidence in technological quantum leaps regarding climate-friendly energy sources and fuels? Citizens as strong individuals in local community communities and in actionable NGOs? Or the municipalities as authorities and drivers of the local green transition?

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The diplomatic answer is that everyone owns the climate challenges. However, we see a need to tighten ownership in general.

Whether it is the political ownership of, among other things, the realization of the municipal climate plans and the national ownership in ensuring the framework for the local implementation of a sustainable infrastructure for the green transition. And not least that we all take responsibility across sectors and actors.

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We have recognised that we cannot do enough alone, so that is why it is absolutely vital that we do it in partnerships across the board where everyone has a hand on the hob.

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Work needs to be done at all levels.

Communal everyday life is just a start

We know the municipal reality very well — and the many positive intentions to contribute to addressing climate challenges in cooperation with local businesses and in municipal welfare in schools, day care centers and nursing homes through climate-friendly diets, energy savings, climate change among children and young people and sustainable development of construction.

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However, we need more changes than those that municipal enterprise can create.

We need more of what Middelfart Municipality is, among other things, a role model: to take the dialogue on climate and create action.

In Middelfart Municipality, this is done by putting the climate issue on the broad political agenda with the Climate People's Meeting and by taking action without waiting for long-term resource clarifications.

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In other municipalities, cross-sectoral partnerships are being made, RES plants are being built in cooperation with local communities, and farmland is being redeveloped for the benefit of the climate, nature and local communities.

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However, it is often incremental, small-scale changes that accompany this approach, and we need more speed in the transition — and bold policy priorities as well.

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The awareness that we can do something for the general population, like at the Klimafolkødet meeting, and that we are a cog in the long cool cog drive.

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An example of inspiration is Esbjerg Municipality, which with its climate partnerships with companies has led the green transition.

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Here, an agreement is reached between the municipality and the company on how the company will work towards realising the local climate target of net-zero in 2030 for Scope 1 and 2 (internal emissions and external energy-related emissions) and, in the long run, how to reduce it in relation to Scope 3 (indirect emissions).

Need for a faster pace of realization across

Our wish for 2025 is that we as a whole society will put the turbo on the realization of the municipal climate plans.

They are ready for the difficult implementation and the process from going from word to action. Here, the political level plays a crucial role in setting the direction on issues such as:

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• How do we ensure that the important implementation of the paper plans is not drowned out by the municipal budget challenges?
• How do we avoid that it does not become primarily the task of a single hired climate coordinator to succeed?
• How do we create broad ownership in both the municipal enterprise and in the local business and association life?
• How can new roles, behaviours and cross-cultural changes be an important change step — and what does that mean for you as a politician?

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Our New Year's hope is that all actors cooperate more on the wild complex societal problem that is the climate challenge.

No actor or organization can succeed alone.

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We face important behavioral changes that can be difficult to overcome as individuals or as a family.

We need to practice together and be inspired at eye level to, for example, eat more plant-based and recycle more. And we depend on each other, research and the engines of the market in relation to the great radical changes of our transport, energy consumption and agriculture.

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We hope that by 2025 we can talk even more about the future climate culture we are going to create together, where we also talk openly about what is difficult.

Instead of talking primarily about deprivation and negative priorities, together we must be able to see innovative opportunities and sharpen our positive imagination about the climate-friendly society of the future.

For example, what positive effects does eating less meat and more plant-based produce have on our health?

The Climate Summit is an important arena

A concrete proposal to put action behind our hopes for 2025 is for more people to support the Climate People's Meeting in Middelfart, so that it becomes, to the right extent, the venue for a transnational climate summit.

A summit where politicians meet people's activists, professional experts, business and research in open dialogues and innovative co-creation on the next steps for the important green transition.

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A summit that focuses on progress and binding cross-cutting goals, so that we find and magnify the best results across both Danish and international borders.