Danish Anticipated Oil Depletion Fuels Green Energy Push

From the Copenhagen Post:

Dwindling oil reserves provide an opportunity for the country to become carbon-neutral, the opposition argue

The opposition is echoing calls from the Danish Energy Agency for the country to become entirely free of its fossil fuel dependency by 2050, reports Politiken newspaper.

In a report released this week, the agency indicated that the country’s oil and gas reserves in the North Sea would run dry by 2018 and 2020, respectively.

The Climate Ministry’s current policy only plans to double the current amount of renewable energy being produced by 2025. The European Union’s overall goals are to increase renewable energy 20 percent by 2020 and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by the same amount for the period.
But that is not enough, according to Margrethe Vestager, head of the Social Liberal party.

‘Last year’s energy agreement is now clearly not good enough. The opposition is united in its goal of Denmark being free of coal, gas and oil in 40 years,’ said Vestager, indicating the idea is also supported by the Social Democrats and the Socialist People’s Party.

Morten Bødskov, the Social Democrat financial spokesman, said speeding up the process of turning fully to green energy is a necessity in light of the economic implications of the North Sea dilemma.

‘In 20 years Denmark ought to be the first carbon-neutral country in the world,’ said Bodskov. ‘And that means making huge investments and renovations. The financial crisis is in that sense a good incentive for new investments so that we don’t become dependent on importing oil and gas.’