Diary from Copenhagen—part 2
Home » Blog » Diary from Copenhagen—part 2Energy audits, pinwheel pastries and frozen faces!
Thursday 3 December
Negative one degree, beamed the electronic thermometer outside the window at 7:11am this morning. By far the coldest day yet! The cold is actually surprisingly pleasant, perhaps due to the warmth inside and the layers of clothing we choose to wear. Besides the sniffing and frozen faces, I think I could really get used to this lifestyle!
Today we had a field trip to our host school—Stordemskolen. This was great because we have met the students a few times before and it was fun to do workshops together. We went to one of the students houses to do an energy audit. This was really interesting as we found out which appliances use the most energy when left on standby. We also calculated how much energy and CO2 each household emitted.
The house I evaluated emitted 0.603 tonnes of CO2 per year and could save about 4,000 DKK per year, which is roughly NZ$1,000. The main cause of this was leaving appliances switched on and taking baths instead of showers. However, the house was good with water conservation in the taps and shower as they had water savers in place. These add oxygen to the water which reduces water usage by 30%.
We chose to walk home to reduce our emissions—and of course to see more of beautiful Copenhagen. I guess it also helped that we had half an hour to spare. We walked, trying to avoid being hit by cars or bikes (which was quite challenging considering they drive on the ‘right’ side of the road). We saw more and more sights we had not yet seen. I really enjoyed exploring streets off the main drag, where the streets are narrow and there are endless cute basement shops!
The day got even better when we stopped at a bakery and got cheap pinwheel pastries. They seem to be the only cheap thing in Copenhagen! They were delicious and made bearing the cold much more worthwhile.
I am having such a fun time with the other delegates and I don’t want the conference to end so soon. I feel the work we are doing is so beneficial. In a way I want to get back to NZ so that I can share all the amazing things I have learned.
