Home to the skylark - The Velux Foundations

Climate
policy:
perhaps the most
important indicator
of sustainable
development?
BY THOMAS FÆRGEMAN
Thomas Færgeman (born 1965) holds degrees
in agronomy and journalism, and has devoted
his entire career to the environmental field:
initially at Novo Nordisk A/S, then as an en-
vironmental consultant to Deloitte, followed
by 10 years as assistant general manager of the
Danish Society for Nature Conservation, where
he was responsible for nature and environment
policy development and lobbying, until he be-
came head of department at the Danish Minis-
try of the Environment. Since 2008 he has been
the managing director of CONCITO.
In 2010, the VELUX FOUNDATION granted DKK 5,460,000 to
the CONCITO think tank, for the completion of its “Annual Climate
Outlook 2010-2011” project, and in 2011 the VILLUM FOUNDA-
TION granted DKK 4,978,000 for a project on a green tax reform.
The VELUX FOUNDATION granted additionally DKK 6,646,667
for ‘Climate Outresch’ in 2012 and 2013. CONCITO is a Danish cli-
mate network with 100 members, one third of which are businesses,
one third scientists, and one third organisations and individuals re-
presenting a broad segment of civil society. “Annual Climate Outlook
2010-2011” consists of an annual analysis of Danish climate policies
in the areas of transportation, buildings, agriculture, and energy. On
the basis of this analysis, CONCITO’s members draft a number of
concrete recommendations for the Danish Parliament. CONCITO
also conducts analyses of the environmental impact of Danish con-
sumer behaviour, as well as maintaining a focus on the availability
of sustainable biomass, and the possibility of calculating the climate
impact of individual products.
In late May 2011, the International Energy Agency announced that global
CO 2 emissions had never been higher, and that they were rising at a steadily
increasing pace. According to the IEA’s senior economist, this was the worst
possible news that the world could have received.
A week earlier, 17 Nobel Prize laureates made an urgent appeal to the poli-
ticians of the world to take action now, because they, based on their sci-
entific knowledge, feared immeasurable and irreversible consequences for
the Earth and mankind. This was not an appeal from an environmental
organisation or a political interest group, but from people whose knowledge
is universally admired and appreciated.
A few weeks prior to this appeal, the Arctic Council published a report on
sea level rises in this century, concluding that these had in all likelihood been
grossly underestimated, and might be considerably greater than previously
assumed. And a few weeks before the publication of that report, it was an-
nounced that, globally, 2010 had been the warmest year on record.
2010 also saw climate change manifest itself in floods in Australia and Pa-
kistan, hurricanes in the United States, droughts in Russia with subsequent
forest fires, and rising food prices. Food prices which led to rebellion and
revolution, but which frail new democracies have no chance of addressing
without resolute efforts to stem the worst consequences of climate change.
116 CLIMATE POLICY Foto: Ojbyrne
VILLUM FOUNDATION AND VELUX FOUNDATION 117
ENVIRONMENT AND SUSTAINABILITY