The Climate and Energy Choice Guide was published on Monday. In this document, a working group of officials writes what the new cabinet should do in the climate sector. The most important conclusion: More climate policy is needed. And this will cost tens of billions in the coming years.
The big winner of the last elections, PVV, advocates less climate policy. The election manifesto states that “the climate law, the climate deal and all other climate measures will go through the shredder immediately if they have their way.” However, the Election Guide notes that additional policy measures are required to achieve the current climate target of 55 percent emissions reductions.
“In concrete terms, this means that difficult decisions are required in agriculture (…) and mobility,” the officials write. “The Netherlands still needs to take the biggest and toughest steps to become climate neutral by 2050, in line with European and national climate laws.”
fines
Nieuwsuur spoke with Noé van Hulst, head of the official working group that created the Electoral Guidelines. In his view, more needs to be done in sectors where relatively little has been done so far, such as agriculture and mobility. “In agriculture, for example, this means you have to deal with reducing the number of animals.”
According to Van Hulst, this is probably inevitable. “Sooner or later you really have to do something about it. We say: Do it sooner rather than later, it’s much better. Otherwise, you will have to intervene more harshly later.”
But what if the new cabinet wants to do less on climate policy? Van Hulst says this is possible, but only to a limited extent. “We are part of a movement towards climate neutrality in Europe. So you are at the lower end of what needs to be done from Europe. “If the Netherlands falls under this, you as a country risk facing fines, warnings and all sorts of things you wouldn’t want to happen to your worst enemy.”
Deterioration of the investment environment
Van Hulst says you could approach climate policy more calmly, but says: “Then you’ll be sitting at the back of the bus in Europe. Then you no longer have a say in what happens.”
“Then you give companies less perspective on where things are going. “This leads to uncertainty, postponement of investments and inherently deterioration of the investment environment in the Netherlands.” This would be bad news for the Dutch economy, among other things. Van Hulst says companies don’t like it when a country gets into trouble with the European Union over bad climate policy. “Then companies will shift their investments to other countries that are more positive.”
A lesser climate policy, as advocated by PVV, does not seem to be a realistic option considering the United Nations climate agreement that the Netherlands signed in 2015. “The Netherlands still needs to take the biggest and toughest steps to become climate neutral by 2050, in line with European and national climate laws.”
A right-wing cabinet looks likely but nothing is certain at the moment. Nieuwsuur examined what political parties were doing in terms of climate plans ahead of the elections:
Source: NOS
Emma Fitzgerald is an accomplished political journalist and author at The Nation View. With a background in political science and international relations, she has a deep understanding of the political landscape and the forces that shape it.
