Cross-party talks have begun to create new climate legislation that will include the creation of a new, independent climate council charged with coming up ways Denmark can become a low emissions society.

The new legislation should enable the government to achieve its goal of the country being fossil fuel free by 2050. However, another of its goals – to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases by 40 percent by 2020, which it included in its 2011 election pledge – will not be included.

“We will not be including the 40 percent target in the legislation itself, but at the moment there is a broad majority in parliament in favour of that reduction,” the Danish minister of climate and energy, Martin Lidegaard (R), told Berlingske.

Venstre: 34 percent should be enough

While Konservative approves of the 40 percent goal, Venstre does not see the need for new legislation or to alter the 34 percent target agreed on in the energy settlement of 2012.

“We will of course attend the negotiations if we are invited,” Venstre’s climate spokesperson Lars Christian Lilleholt told Politiken.

“But it is very clear that we will not participate in an agreement that raises costs for consumers or the business and agricultural sectors. Venstre cannot imagine taking this further without risking thousands of jobs.”

Others greeted the government’s proposal enthusiastically. The green think-tank Concito said it was “excellent” that the government is proposing to set up an independent climate council.

“In England the government is committed to reacting if its climate commission has a recommendation, and we believe it is a model that the Danish government should adopt,” Concito chief executive Thomas Færgeman told Politiken.