New Danish government may speed up green transition 

The winner of Tuesday’s general election will try to accelerate Denmark’s green transition and possibly even raise the 2030 emissions reduction target, based on recent campaign statements.
The Nordic nation already gets more than 50% of its electricity supply from wind turbines and has seen emissions drop more than 40% since 1990, mainly through replacing coal-fired power generation with wind, solar and biomass.

But any government is bound by Denmark’s climate law to cut greenhouse emissions by 70% below 1990 levels by 2030. To get there, sectors like transport and manufacturing have to swap fossil fuels for electricity, which will probably more than double to 64 TWh/year by 2030, according to the country’s energy and climate ministry.

Russia’s war in Ukraine and the subsequent reduction in gas exports to Europe has given the green transition an additional push. In June, a broad majority in the Danish parliament agreed to quadruple onshore wind and solar output and increase offshore wind power capacity five-fold by 2030.

Since the main targets have been agreed by a broad majority in parliament, a change of government is unlikely to usher in any big changes to Denmark’s energy policy, said Hans-Henrik Lindboe, a partner of consultancy EA Energianalyse.

However, he said a new government could see changes to how Denmark plans to implement a temporary cap on profits on energy companies, after EU energy ministers agreed to impose a EUR 180/MWh cap from 1 December to the end of June next year.

Incumbent energy minister Dan Jorgensen of the Social Democrats has said his party wants to cap profits on power producers as well as energy trading companies, a view shared by his centre-left allies. In contrast, the opposition Conservative party has said it is against such market intervention.

The Conservatives, and its key ally the Liberals, have also urged the government to cut red tape to speed up deployment of new wind and solar farms as well as necessary grid connections, noting recent deployment of new capacity is far too slow.

Deeper emissions cuts?

The current minority government’s three left-wing allies have all called for lifting Denmark’s emissions reduction target for 2030 to 80%. Both prime minister Mette Frederiksen and her main rival for the post, Liberal party leader Jakob Ellemann-Jensen, have said they could accept a higher target, though neither have come up with a figure.

But it would be more difficult for a right-wing coalition to raise the emissions bar since centre-right parties are generally less positive to such moves, said political analyst Jesper Vestergren at broadcaster TV2.

Frederiksen has steered Denmark through a minority government since 2019, with backing from the Social Liberal, Green Left and Red-Green Alliance parties. But recent opinion polls suggest that these parties will lose their majority in parliament and that the centre-right opposition will also fail to win a majority.

Instead, political observers say the role of kingmaker may fall on a new centrist Moderate party led by former Liberal prime minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen, almost two years after he quit his party due to an internal conflict.