I’ll have a Danish, please
- johnyoungandenterp
- Jun 16
- 4 min read
What’s not to like about the pastry lovers who invented Lego? The Danes are an entirely laudable nation who are showing the world how to build the closest thing to a carbon-neutral utopia we have yet seen, doubling GDP over the past 40 years but keeping energy consumption constant. As Francis Fukuyama said, every liberal democracy should try to be Denmark.
This article first appeared in the Financial Mail, 18 November, 2021.
As the fractious COP26 ground to an end in Glasgow I was reminded of the disaster of COP15 in 2009. That was the first time I paid attention to the COP and I thought the acronym was related to the Danish capital.
It is not. COP is Conference of the Parties run by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the number is COPs held since the first “Earth Summit” in Rio de Janeiro in 1992.
That the Copenhagen COP ended in acrimony is ironic because the Danes are masters at finding consensus. They haven’t had a majority government since 1909. Coalitions get the job done.
The Danes have also since 2009 done more than any other nation to move towards the goals that routinely get spouted at the COPs but rarely get acted on.
The world could learn from Denmark.
Since a severe energy crisis in the early 1970s Denmark has transformed its energy sector. Gross domestic product (GDP) has grown by more than 100% since 1980 but energy consumption is unchanged. The country earns billions of Euros in green exports.
In 2020, 80% of the country’s power came from renewables but the country has not been immune to recent energy shocks because of droughts in Norway and a shortage of wind in Denmark. But the trajectory is clear. Denmark is showing the way.
Francis Fukuyama famously wrote that the goal for liberal democracies should be to get to Denmark. His focus was on the rule of law, accountability and the state’s efficiency. I’ve been visiting and watching Denmark since 1976 and I’ve learnt some surprising things about this country of fewer than six million people.
Think of an economic sector and there’s a Danish giant: audio, Bang & Olufson; beer, Carlsberg; chemicals, Haldor Topsoe; engineering, Ramboll; industrial equipment, Danfoss; logistics, DSV; pumps, Grundfos; shipping, Maersk; toys, Lego. The Bjarke Ingels Group is the world’s trendiest architectural firm.
What used to be the state oil company, Ørsted, is now the world’s biggest offshore wind power company. No wind turbine manufacturer is bigger than Vestas.
Then there’s Danish bacon and butter.
And this is a country that some US politicians snearingly call “socialist”. In fact, Denmark has a sophisticated social support network. High taxes finance a comprehensive system and the social compact means that successful businesses don’t have to worry about causing a social catastrophe if they lay someone off.
Some aspects of Denmark are truly astonishing for South Africans. Like the group who heard an industry leader proclaim, “As Danes, we love to pay tax.” Denmark has a Tax Minister, and a Climate Change Minister.
To get a sense of how well Denmark works, consider this. After a meal in a suburb of Copenhagen on a cold December’s night around midnight, I prepared to catch a bus back to my hotel. I asked, “How long should I expect to wait?” My hosts did not understand the question. The wait turned out to be about four minutes but my friends’ reaction tells you all you need to know about service delivery in Denmark.
So how did Denmark get to Denmark? I’m persuaded by the theory that choices made during the Reformation have something to do with it. The theory goes that Calvinism (as pursued in America) encouraged a kind of capitalism where the role of the state was rejected, whereas in Lutheranism the role of the state (or crown) was seen as benign. One of the taxes paid by Danes to this day is “kirkeskat”.
Workers’ rights, co-operatives and a national education movement were the other building blocks of the modern social democratic state.
I have always found it odd that such an egalitarian, democratic country should be so staunchly royalist but there are many things about Denmark that defy easy generalisation. They fly the national flag everywhere but are the opposite of nasty nationalists. They are hip and modern yet they sing folk songs at the drop of a hat. The Confederation of Danish Industry supports tougher environmental legislation.
Danish design is the epitome of simplicity but their open sandwiches are more elaborate than wedding cakes. That they love liquorice just defies belief.
The politicians and activists who left Copenhagen’s COP15 in December 2009 were depressed. The architects who visit the city next year for the World Congress of the International Union of Architects (UIA) will find a city well on the way to reaching its targets of being among the world’s most liveable cities while at the same time being carbon neutral and adaptable to climate change.
Denmark is trying to get to an ever better Denmark.
