How an Artificial Island in Denmark Became One of Europe’s Most Controversial Climate Projects

Rising out of Copenhagen’s harbor, visible only as a line of rocks peeking through the blue-gray waves, is one of Europe’s most controversial climate projects. Lynetteholm, a one square mile artificial island, is being built to shield the low-lying Danish capital from storm surges, which are intensifying as sea levels rise. Politicians approved the project in 2021, promising a world-leading bounty of benefits, from flood protection, to new housing, to cash for other city upgrades.

But ever since then...