A View from the ‘Hopenhagen Live’ Greentech Fair
In the city hall square in Copenhagen lies Hopenhagen Live, a futuristic village of glass cabins with green-neon trim, showcasing the greentech innovation that will perhaps save the world. It’s a pop-up conference exhibition designed to show attendees and Copenhagen locals the everyday applications that can come out of greentech investment; Hopenhagen Live is part of Hopenhagen, a global grassroots campaign created by advertising agency Ogilvy and Mather working pro bono to support the United Nations. Whilst the UN conference is about policy and targets, Hopenhagen Live reminds us that it’s greentech innovators who will provide the solutions.
Most ideas on display in this public space are based on transport; the renewable energy technology sector is mostly ignored. Given that much of the investment coming out of Copenhagen will be in renewables, it’s strange that more emphasis isn’t given to the development of solar and wind power technology here – explaining their increasing efficiency and the extent to which they can replace fossil fuels. But Hopenhagen Live is about fun, and getting ordinary people engaged with climate change – showcasing green transportation is more exciting, and much easier to relate to than Siemens’ development of Smart Grid technology. Smart Grid is therefore given only one small panel in one small cabin, despite being something that the U.S. will invest $4 Billion of stimulus package money in.
Locals will be interested by a project funded by the City of Copenhagen: the ‘Copenhagen Wheel’, which will appeal to the 40 per cent of people in the city who commute by bike. Developed by MIT’s SENSEable City lab project, it’s the cycling version of the Nike Plus iPod-linked running shoe. The wheel harvests energy when cyclists brake, powering an electric motor, In the wheel, sensors monitor traffic, pollution, noise, and temperature information, all of which is broadcast wirelessly via smartphone, and the data collected for the commuters, their friends, and for the city. The MIT inventors will be hoping that a commitment to huge emissions cuts is made at the conference will necessitate greater investment in technology that’ll achieve those cuts. The wheel is a niche technology, but forward-thinking innovation in urban transport is essential with cities accounting for two-thirds of global emissions.
Private entrepreneurs also showcased their work, including Shai Agassi, ex-President of SAP (one of the three sponsors of Hopenhagen), and one of Time magazine’s top 100 influential people. His company Better Place provides electric car infrastructure services, and here in Copenhagen they exhibit their products and charging stations: quiet cars for a quiet city, which could provide emission cuts much greater than bike-based innovation if successfully rolled out.
Agassi demanded that governments agree an ambitious deal in a pre-conference video; he and all the green entrepreneurs hope that a comprehensive deal at the conference will be the impetus for further public and private investment. Al Gore explains that a comprehensive UN deal demanding strict emission cuts, and which offers financing for the developing world, will “unleash capital and innovation.” Whether or not the final UN deal ends up being the “Real Deal” that activists are calling for (and that looks increasingly unlikely), there will still be financing made available by the developed world to help their industries and help the developing world transition towards clean economies.
Making greentech developments accessible and fun, as Hopenhagen does, seems one way innovators are doing good work to improve city dwellers’ lives and draw ordinary people into the complex debates surrounding climate change. But away from the Science Museum sheen of Hopenhagen, windmills and tweaks to national grids will provide greater savings over time, and will likely continue to attract the majority of investment.
Posted by Mike Smith in Green Rush | December 16, 2009 3:13PM |
December 17th, 2009 at 1:33 pm
Hard to tell whether to be violently cynical or cheerfully embracing of Ogilvy and Mather putting together this Hopenhagen malarky. It smacks of being a slick corporate exercise, but let’s face it: a leading global advertising agency is likely to have a fair amount of success in persuading people to engage with them, and when they’re trying to get people to engage with climate change then that’s surely a good thing. Can’t imagine it’s gone down too well with the “fuck The Man” patchouli brigade over in Copenhagen though…
December 17th, 2009 at 2:06 pm
On the Hopenhagen Live! stage, supporting Gogol Bordello, the Yes Men (doing hoaxes and performance activism in Copenhagen) told the crowd to never buy Coca-Cola again (Coca-Cola are the main sponsor of Hopenhagen, and their ads are all around Copenhagen). That felt like quite a weak attack.
But then Hopenhagen feels weak too, so maybe it’s deserved: the event could have been much less slick and corporate, more focused on the stage, getting more politicians and speakers involved, and really rally people to achieve Hopenhagen’s manifesto.
Corporate sponsors of course make courting controversy difficult, and the City of Copenhagen could perhaps have been convinced to set something up if the ad agencies hadn’t jumped at the corporations’ monies — the city of Copenhagen happily paid $125,000 for a two-week long alternative conference for activists.
Hopenhagen has ultimately been a passive beast (maybe that was the idea). Obama’s campaign was also all about HOPE, but it had the active and personal element too: Yes We Can. Hopenhagen makes the summit and our chances for making a difference seem distant and aspirational: something that seems more accurate by the day. Maybe they were right too not get our Hopes up too much.