Svend Auken Keynote at Portland Plan Leadership Summit June 6, 2008

Dane Svend Auken, former first vice president of the Danish Parliament and co-author of the Kyoto Protocol, delivers a keynote at 9.45am Friday.

Auken will share his experience of leading Denmark from oil dependence to energy independence during the Portland Plan Leadership Summit at the Oregon Convention Center on Friday. The conference runs from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.

In his keynote, Auken will discuss lessons learned from Denmark’s success story. In an interview this week, Auken said Denmark was 100 percent dependent on foreign oil by the 1970s.

“The biggest thing we have achieved is decoupling,” he said, explaining that his country’s gross domestic product has risen steadily in the last 30 years, but its energy consumption has gone down. “Since the 1970s we have had more than 80 percent economic growth, with no rise in energy consumption. Secondly, we have developed new resources for energy: wind and biofuels. Today, they account for almost 30 percent of our power supply.”

Auken said his country has embraced energy conservation in its building practices and it has led Europe in the use of wind turbine energy. Its wind farms, some of which are located offshore near Copenhagen, generate nearly 20 percent of the country’s annual electric supply.

In addition, Denmark’s leadership in energy technologies has given the country new exportable products and services.

Pretty impressive.

Official Website: http://www.djcoregon.com/articleDetail.htm/2008/06/05/Dane-to-speak-on-energy-independence-Svend-Auken-was-instrumental-in-helping-Denmark-let-go-of-its-d