Copenhagen Kicks Off a Green Year with a Winter Swim
More than 150 winter swimmers jumped into Copenhagen harbour baths on Thursday (January 23) evening at an event launching Copenhagen's year as 'European Green Capital', an award given to the Danish capital by the European Commission.
The swimmers plunged into the icy waters in downtown Copenhagen to celebrate the harbour's clean water.
"There is no better place to be than here at the harbour bath where it actually signifies a lot of the change in Copenhagen. The water is clean in the harbour, the fish are swimming through, you can actually take a bath here, so it's a very great place to show what this green transformation of a city is all about," Deputy Mayor for Technical and Environmental affairs, Morten Kabell, said.
More than two hundred green events are scheduled over the next year, including a 'bring and buy' markets and a large harvest festival, while professionals from around the world have been invited to Copenhagen to attend conferences and master-classes to share information about the latest climate solutions.
The European Commission awarded the prize to Copenhagen in recognition of the city's initiatives to make the city even greener while raising the standard of living.
Copenhagen aims to increase the number of cyclists, become carbon neutral by 2025 and to ensure the city's residents good access to green spaces.
"We are being awarded this because of three things. We have a bicycle culture that is unique in the world, more than half of us use our bike every single day to commute. We have, as you can see here, harbour baths where we have cleaned up what was once a very polluted harbour. And we have a climate plan where, in only eleven years, Copenhagen will be the first carbon neutral capital in the world," Kabell said.
As part of Copenhagen's plan to become carbon neutral in just eleven years, three out of a total 100 wind turbines opened on Wednesday (January 22). The three turbines provide green electricity for 3,000 families in Copenhagen.
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