From the end of 2023, Schiphol airport, the third busiest in Europe in terms of passenger traffic, will limit the maximum number of flights each year to 440,000, 12% less than in 2019, the Dutch ministry of transport said in a statement on Friday.

The flight cuts aim to restore “the balance between a well-operating international airport, the business climate, and the interests of a better and healthier living environment”, transport minister Mark Harbers said in the statement. 

The government said the airport, which has faced staff shortages this year, must rein in its growth as the country seeks to reduce CO2 emissions and pollutants such as nitrogen oxide. The Netherlands previously cut the national speed limit to 100km per hour (62 mph) to reduce nitrogen pollution.

“This is a difficult message for the aviation sector that is still recovering from the far-reaching consequences of the coronavirus pandemic,” Harbers said.

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Dutch airline KLM described the decision as “highly detrimental” and said “it does not tally with the desire to retain a strong hub function” for Schiphol. The airport said it supports a “well-thought-out approach” that helps it achieve its goal of “connecting the Netherlands with the world as an increasingly quieter and cleaner Schiphol.”

Campaigners welcomed the decision, saying it sent a clear signal that curbing aviation demand is necessary to meet climate goals.

UN chief Antonio Guterres has called for international shipping and aviation targets to be radically strengthened, in line with the Paris Agreement goal to limit global warming to 1.5C.

Aviation accounts for 2.1% of global emissions. The sector has agreed to an “aspirational goal” to make air travel growth carbon-neutral from 2020, establishing a carbon offsetting scheme to buy emissions reductions in other sectors.

Leo Murray, director of innovation at the NGO Possible, told Climate Home News it was a “world first development which could be hugely significant to global climate efforts.”

“Due to the extreme technical challenges of decarbonising air travel and the slow progress to date, it is almost certain that reducing overall flight numbers – at least temporarily – will be required at the global level to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement,” said Murray.

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Murray added it was unlikely that other airports would follow suit, but the flight cap weakened the argument for expansion of rival hubs such as Heathrow. 

It is the first time that a government has announced a flight cap, Koenraad Backers, director of aviation at the Dutch NGO Nature & Environment, told Climate Home News.

“It has always been growth, growth, growth up till now,” Backers said. “Tolerated is no longer the order of the day; rules also apply to the aviation industry.”

Greenpeace, which lobbied for Schiphol to reduce airport traffic, described the move as a “historic breakthrough.” 

“It is good that the Cabinet realises that Schiphol has, for years, been flying beyond all boundaries when it comes to noise, nitrogen, ultrafine particles and the climate,” Dewi Zloch, aviation expert at Greenpeace in the Netherlands, said in a statement. 

Zloch said the cuts don’t go far enough to curb aviation emissions. “This is the impetus. Schiphol needs to finally come up with a plan that takes the Paris Agreement into account,” she said. 

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The government of conservative Prime Minister Mark Rutte is working out new measures after the Dutch Supreme Court in December ordered it to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 25% by the end of 2020, compared with 1990 levels, as its fair share to combat climate change.

It is a daunting task – latest official figures showed only a 15% drop on 1990 levels by the end of 2018, meaning sharp cuts will be needed in an economy where major emission sources are manufacturing, energy generation, transport and agriculture.

The case marked the end of a six-year legal battle by the non-profit Urgenda Foundation and was seen as a landmark moment for climate justice. UN special rapporteur on human rights and the environment David Boyd called it the “most important climate change court decision in the world so far”.

The Supreme Court stressed that the Dutch government and parliament had a great deal of freedom to choose how to meet the 2020 goal. At 12 tonnes of CO2 equivalent per person in 2017, Dutch emissions per capita are one of the highest in the EU and have barely fallen over the past decade.

“It really is a test case for very rapid emission reductions,” said Christiana Figueres, an architect of the 2015 Paris Agreement and former head of the UN climate change secretariat. “Of course the Netherlands is actually quite vulnerable because quite a lot of the territory is below sea level. This is in their interest to do so.”

Switzerland joins few nations confirming to UN it will enhance climate action plans

Figueres said other governments will be watching, even if they are not under the same legal pressure, because they are likely to have to take similar radical action if they are serious about limiting global temperature rise to 1.5C – the tougher goal of the Paris Agreement.

According to UN Environment’s latest emissions gap report, this will require unprecedented global greenhouse gas cuts of 7.6% a year over the next decade. World emissions have risen in most of the recent years.

The Netherlands has produced a more ambitious carbon plan for 2030 and recently passed a law to end all coal power generation by that date. But these will not help it meet the 2020 deadline.

And the Dutch government has been tight-lipped about extra plans so far. In a letter dated 31 January, economic affairs and climate minister Eric Wiebes said the cabinet would continue to work on emission-cutting measures while ministers met with Urgenda director Marjan Minnesma in February to discuss options.

When asked to comment, the government said it “keeps developing measures to reduce greenhouse gases emissions” and would regularly inform parliament about them. A more detailed update is expected in March.

With about 10 months to go, , a member of Urgenda’s legal counsel, still believes the goal is realistic.

“The unfortunate thing is they postponed [it] for too long. They could have started in 2015…. But if they look seriously at the list of measures we provided to them they can do this,” he said.

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Urgenda and around 800 stakeholders have produced a set of actions they believe would effectively close the gap between forecast emissions and the 2020 target. These include shrinking the livestock sector, making industrial electricity generation more efficient and managing forests sustainably.

They also recommend shutting the country’s remaining three large coal plants, which opened in 2015 and 2016, ahead of schedule. This could be problematic because the plants’ operators – Germany energy companies Uniper and RWE – have threatened legal action if they do not receive adequate compensation for early closure.

Van Berkel noted that the government had not discounted any options yet. In fact, last year, it made the unpopular move of reducing national road speed limits in response to a separate court decision on nitrogen oxide emissions.

“The same government that increased the maximum speed and promoted it as one of its national achievements… now lowered the maximum speed. It shows that if you really want to you can do things that have never been done before,” he said.

But Richard Tol, professor of the economics of climate change at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, said it is “highly unlikely” that the Netherlands will rise to the challenge, saying a 10% emissions reduction by the end of 2020 would “require shutting down a substantial part of the economy”.

Tol has contributed to reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change but has also been accused of underplaying climate change’s physical and economic impacts. He pulled out of an IPCC report writing team in 2014, calling the draft “alarmist”.

Public opinion in the Netherlands will undoubtedly play an important role. Van Berkel said the initial 2015 judgment “really changed the political debate” in the Netherlands and made it more difficult for the government to avoid action.

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But recent months have also seen a backlash from farmers opposed to policies aimed at cutting agricultural nitrogen oxide emissions.

The Urgenda decision has also made waves in the wider climate litigation field.

As well as confirming the state’s obligation to cut emissions urgently, it was the first time any court in the world ruled that a government had explicit duties to protect its citizens’ human rights in the face of climate change.

Last week, Friends of the Irish Environment (FIE) announced their challenge to the Irish government’s 2017 National Mitigation Plan would be heard in the Supreme Court of Ireland. It is only the second case in the world to reach this point.

Stijn Franken, partner at law firm NautaDutilh, which represented Urgenda, said it is unclear what would happen if the Netherlands failed to meet the 2020 target as there are no legal precedents.

But a recent ruling by the EU’s Court of Justice suggests the court may have powers to fine the government for inaction if follow-up legal action is taken.

Campaigners are keen to keep a positive face on the situation. Van Berkel pointed out that, to date, the Dutch government has always complied with court rulings.

“That’s the precedent. The extraordinary thing would be if the government doesn’t do that. If you stop playing by the rules of the game then you have bigger problems.”

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Under the initial ruling, which was upheld by an appeals court last month, the Netherlands must cut emissions 25% from 1990 levels by 2020. In 2017, emissions were down just 13%, leaving a significant gap to bridge.

In a statement on Friday, the government said it was committed to meeting the tougher goal, but would challenge the decision on principle. By forcing the state to make deeper emissions cuts, the judgment limited executive discretion on policy. “This could have significant consequences for governments’ freedom to make climate policy and in other areas,” it argued.

Urgenda, the campaign group behind the lawsuit, criticised the decision to appeal. “We would much rather have worked side by side with our government to reduce emissions, rather than have to fight them in court again,” said director Marjan Minnesma.

Campaigners are “not convinced” by the rationale behind the appeal, she added, noting the government can decide how to meet the target.

Climate lawyers to use UN 1.5C report to sue governments

Mark Rutte’s administration has already promised to shut the country’s five coal power plants by 2030 and advocated stronger EU-wide action.

With just over a year to deadline, though, it may need to do more. The Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency will update its emissions forecast early next year, based on existing policies. If it shows extra measures are needed to meet the 2020 goal, the government said it would “act accordingly”. Last-ditch options include speeding up the coal phaseout and slowing down motorway traffic.

In 2015, district judges accepted Urgenda’s argument that 25% was the minimum emissions cut compatible with holding global warming to 2C. Later that year, the Paris Agreement confirmed 2C as the upper acceptable limit of temperature rise, calling for efforts to stick to 1.5C.

Minnesma said: “Delaying action will inevitably lead to us missing the temperature targets in the Paris Agreement and will have catastrophic consequences for all of us.”

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Judge Marie-Anne Tan de Sonnaville endorsed a landmark 2015 victory for campaign group Urgenda and nearly 900 citizens, which forced the Netherlands to deepen its emissions cuts to at least 25% from 1990 levels by 2020.

The government has a duty to protect its citizens from the “real threat” of climate change, she said. That meant abiding by a minimum level of emissions cuts in the short term and not relying on sucking carbon dioxide of the air later, in the court’s opinion.

The Netherlands needed to have policies that aligned with its international commitments, according to the ruling. Its small contribution to global emissions was rejected as an excuse for inaction.

Explaining her rationale, the judge said: “Climate change is a grave danger. Any postponement of emissions reductions exacerbates the risks of climate change. The Dutch government cannot hide behind other countries’ emissions. It has an independent duty to reduce emissions from its own territory.”

Campaigners clapped, cheered and hugged each other in the Hague as the judge read out the verdict.

“Our victory today confirms that the Dutch government should have focused its efforts on increasing action on climate change, and not on fighting a case that has brought so much hope and inspiration around the world,” said Urgenda director Marjan Minnesma in a statement.

Climate lawyers to use UN 1.5C report to sue governments

Monday’s UN special report on the science of 1.5C global warming underscored the urgency of action, Minnesma added. As a low-lying country, the Netherlands is vulnerable to sea level rise that comes as polar ice sheets melt.

Tuesday’s judgement gave “real hope”, said Joos Ockel, a co-plaintiff in the case, adding: “It is even clearer now than it was three years ago that climate change is the defining issue of our lives and our children’s lives.”

The Urgenda suit is part of a wave of climate litigation around the world, demanding stronger climate action or redress from governments and companies. Its argument was based on European convention, meaning it has potential to be replicated in other member states.

Tessa Khan, co-director of the Climate Litigation Network, tweeted the ruling was “a huge victory for all of us”, warning governments to prevent dangerous climate change “or expect to be held accountable in court”.

And @urgenda wins again!! A huge victory for all of us. Governments all over the world are on notice: take the action necessary to prevent dangerous levels of climate change or expect to be held accountable in court #ClimateAction #klimaatzaak

— Tessa Khan (@tessakhan) October 9, 2018

London-based environmental law firm Client Earth echoed that message. “Today’s news shows just what a powerful tool climate litigation has become in holding decision-makers to account for their climate inaction,” said CEO James Thornton. “It has completely changed the debate on climate policy.”

The Dutch government said it would implement the judgment but consider a further appeal to the supreme court, to clarify the court’s jurisdiction over policy choices, public broadcaster NOS reported.

In the past year, prime minister Mark Rutte has joined an alliance of member states calling for higher ambition across the EU. His coalition deal agreed in October 2017 included a commitment to phase out coal power generation by 2030, which means closing some plants early.

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In 2015, campaign group Urgenda and almost 900 citizens successfully sued in the Hague district court for a stronger national 2020 emissions target. The judges ruled government plans to cut emissions 17% from 1990 levels were insufficient and said the target should be at least 25%, in line with international goals.

Since the ruling, the Netherlands elected a new government, which promised to phase out coal by 2030 and lobby for stronger EU-wide ambition. At the same time, the executive is challenging the judiciary’s powers to intervene in policy decisions.

“[This] procedure is not about the government ambitions on this matter,” said Anne van Pinxteren, spokesperson for the Netherlands economics and climate ministry, noting climate change got a “prominent chapter” in the coalition agreement.

“The verdict of the district court has set a major legal precedent. In the appeal case, the court will have to decide in what way judges can check the policy decisions by the government.”

Marjan Minnesma, director of Urgenda, noted that despite the political changes, the Netherlands had only cut emissions 13% from 1990 levels. “If the state is serious about its long-term ambition, it should not be fighting a 25% target for 2020,” she said.

The Urgenda case, filed in 2013, is part of a wave of climate litigation, with similar suits made against the governments of Belgium, Colombia, Ireland, the UK, Switzerland, Norway, New Zealand, and the US.

“If governments don’t act now, climate change will become the defining issue of our lives and our children’s lives,” said Maurits Groen, one of the co-plaintiffs that initiated the case. “We can’t wait any longer. Hundreds of us will be in court on Monday to show how much this case matters.”

On 24 May, ten families filed a lawsuit against the EU over its 2030 climate emissions target. They argue that the bloc’s target to cut emissions by at least 40% by 2030, as compared to 1990 levels, does not protect their fundamental rights.

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Friends of the Earth Netherlands sent a formal letter to the company today, outlining the steps the campaigners believe Shell must take to bring its business plan in line with the global climate goals as set out in the Paris Agreement.

The legal action was started after Shell announced it planned to continue to put around 95% of its investments into extracting more oil and gas. It expects to invest only around 5% in sustainable energy.

Shell is responsible for around 2% of global carbon dioxide and methane emissions between 1894 and 2010, research has previously shown. Shell’s business is jointly registered in the Netherlands and the UK, which gives the campaigners strong grounds to bring the case in Europe.

The campaigners said in a statement that the court case threat is a way to force Shell to “take responsibility for its part in causing global climate damage”.

The court case would be the latest in a series of legal actions to put major oil companies in the dock over their responsibility for climate change. New York is seeking compensation for the effects of climate change from the world’s five largest oil companies: BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil and Shell. A similar suit is also underway in California.

Shell has previously been taken to court in the Netherlands over it liability for oil spills in Nigeria.

Report: Greenpeace appeals Norway Arctic oil drilling case

Craig Bennett, chief executive of the UK branch of Friends of the Earth, said in a statement: “Science tells us that time isn’t a luxury we have where climate change is concerned. When world leaders met in Paris in 2015 they agreed to end the fossil fuel era, but in the meantime, Shell continues to invest in new oil and gas sources.

“Shell must now move on from its history of earth damaging fossil fuel extraction and play a major part in the transition to a sustainable future, to keep temperature rises to near 1.5C. Currently, Shell and companies like it, are acting like big tobacco in decades past by failing to take responsibility for the harm that they cause.”

Sophie Marjanac, a lawyer with NGO Client Earth, said the case has “huge implications”.

“It has been filed in the Netherlands, where judges have already ruled in favour of an NGO’s climate case, resulting in the Dutch government being forced to cut its emissions. The arguments are strong and this could open the door to yet more climate challenges to fossil fuel majors, as we’ve seen with lawsuits around the world and campaigns like #ExxonKnew.”

Jeanne Martin, senior campaigns officer with ShareAction, which seeks to influence companies climate policy at shareholder level, said shareholders should now take the threat of legal action seriously and use their influence to “drive meaningful change in the oil industry”.

“The company says it supports the Paris Agreement and its goal to limit global warming to well below two degrees but its investment portfolio suggests otherwise. Instead of facing the biggest issue of our times, Shell is splashing cash at projects that are incompatible with their stated support of the Paris Agreement, and are likely to go bust in light of rising disruptive regulatory and technological forces.”

Shell had not responded to a request for comment at time of publication.

This article was originally published on DeSmog UK.

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The high-profile intervention comes shortly after calls by Swedish and French ministers on the European Commission to commit to deeper, faster emissions cuts.

The EU’s current goal of a 40% cut on 1990 levels by 2030 was “too low to keep warming below 2C, let alone 1.5C”, said Mark Rutte in a speech in Berlin on Friday.

The 2015 Paris climate agreement formalised global goals to limit warming to “well below” 2C and ideally hold it to 1.5C. But Rutte said the EU’s current goals, set in 2014, were insufficient and needed to be updated.

“We need to raise the bar… This will show that we’re serious about the commitments we made in Paris. By adopting this target, the EU will be doing its share to get closer to the global ambition of keeping warming to 1.5C. So let’s not delay. The current commission could start making preparations. I’d like to see the June European Council approve this.”

Report: EU foreign ministers say China must sign up to universal climate rules

EU targets are set through three-way negotiations between the European Commission, the parliament and the council of national governments. Broadly, climate ambition within Europe is subject to a contest between coal-reliant eastern member states and more green-minded western countries.

“The path ahead may be long,” said Rutte. “But one way or another we’re going to have to kick our addiction to fossil fuels. And make no mistake: most of us will live to see it. This is another area where Europe has a responsibility, and a job to do.”

Camilla Born, senior policy advisor at E3G, said Rutte’s speech “stands out and gives shape to an emerging coalition of countries” who are pushing the EU to raise its sights.

This vanguard includes Sweden. Climate minister Isabella Lövin met with EU climate commissioner Miguel Arias Cañete last month and said she had pushed for the EU to raise its ambition to become a net zero carbon emitter by 2050.

Also last month, French ecology minister Nicolas Hulot met with Maroš Šefčovič, the commission’s vice-president in charge of the energy union, and lobbied for a net zero emissions target.

Report: Poland to put ‘common sense’ over climate ambition as host of critical UN talks

CHN asked the commission whether it was considering recommending a policy change and whether it agreed that the EU target had been outdated by the Paris deal.

Rutte’s speech coincided with a major speech on Brexit by British prime minister Theresa May. Rutte used the opportunity to draw a line between divisive and inclusive visions for Europe’s future.

“You had a choice today,” Rutte told an audience at the Bertelsmann Foundation. “You could have listened to a speech in the UK about a future without Europe. Or a speech in Berlin by someone who believes in Europe and wants to talk about the best way to move forward with Europe.”

Europeans had committed to working together, Rutte said, “because it is the only way we can respond effectively to global challenges like climate change, migration and the future of world trade”.

According to a transcript from the Spectator, May did not mention climate change, despite it being a major area of cooperation between the UK and EU.

The UK has long been seen as an advocate for ambition within EU climate policy. It’s current domestic 2030 emissions target is for a 57% cut.

Report: Netherlands to end coal power by 2030, closing down new plants

Rutte’s latest governing coalition, when it was formed last year, promised to phase out coal power by 2030 and flagged its intention to push stronger ambition at EU level. It also laid out a domestic 2030 target of 49%.

In February, the government announced the development of a “national climate agreement”, which will lay out the path to reach that target.

At the same time, Rutte’s government is appealing a landmark court ruling. Campaign group Urgenda convinced a Dutch court that the country’s 2020 target was insufficient to deal with the threat climate change and sea level rise poses to the low-lying country. The government has to implement the court’s orders pending the outcome of the appeal.

Dennis van Berkel, legal counsel for Urgenda told Climate Home on Monday: “We welcome the speech by the prime minister and are looking forward to his actions to speed up the energy transition in the Netherlands.

“The 49% national target is independent from whether the EU raises its target for 2030. I assume that if the 55% EU targets gets adopted, the Dutch government will also have to step up its ambition for 2030,” he said.

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That was revealed in the coalition agreement for Mark Rutte’s centre-right government on Tuesday, 209 days after the last general election.

Under the agreement, three of the most efficient coal plants in Europe, completed in 2015, face early closure. As Climate Home reported, by 2016 they were already losing value, having failed to anticipate low demand, competition from renewables and campaigner pressure.

Gerard Wynn, an analyst with the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, said the decision “sent a dramatic signal to electricity markets today that no investment in coal-fired power in Europe is safe”.

The four governing parties also agreed to set a carbon floor price for the power sector and buy emissions allowances on the EU carbon market, to make sure coal closures did not simply make it cheaper to pollute elsewhere.

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They are aiming for the Netherlands to cut emissions 49% below 1990 by 2030. Closing coal plants will provide a large chunk of the savings, cutting 12 million tonnes (Mt) of CO2 emissions each year. But the goal hinges on developing carbon capture and storage (CCS), which the agreement said would save 18Mt.

In June, the country’s ROAD CCS pilot project collapsed after a long struggle to get sufficient funding. The coalition promised to consult key ports and industrial regions on a way forward.

At EU level, the Netherlands will lobby for the 2030 emissions reduction target to be deepened from “at least 40%” to 55% from 1990 levels.

Failing that, the coalition said it would seek to agree stronger action with “likeminded” countries in northwestern Europe, to minimise any competitive disadvantage from tougher targets.

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A parliamentary debate about the allegations was immediately scheduled, despite extensive denials by the Rotterdam School of Management (Erasmus University), one of Europe’s largest and best-ranked business schools.

At the heart of the row is a partnership contract (zip file) agreed with Shell in 2012 which allows the company “to potentially influence the design of the RSM curricula and the profile of students who attend the Bsc/Msc/MBA programmes”.

The contract, which Climate Home has seen, says that “ideally, Shell would be able and willing to feature in the Masters courses of the seven Msc programmes”.

The fossil fuels firm has a “substantial interest” in recruiting MSc students and would like to approach student groups with “targeted communications,” the contract says.

To that end, the firm can “identify speakers and guests who will contribute to the students’ understanding of Shell over a possible variety of courses.”

Shell RSM Partnership 1of3 by Karl Mathiesen on Scribd

Vatan Hüzeir, the report’s author and director of the Changerism think tank, blamed cuts to government education budgets and an increased reliance on business school rankings, for an undermining of academic independence.

“In various ways RSM supports business models that depend fundamentally on fossil fuels production and consumption,” he said. “That makes the faculty complicit in facilitating climate change. The far-reaching conflation between science and industry undermines the societal role of universities and their independence.”

A statement put out by the university, which has a triple accreditation and stellar alumni list, said the report was “tendentious, biased and contains factual inaccuracies”.

Marianne Schouten, a spokeswoman for the RSM, told Climate Home the school sees contacts with multinationals, including Shell, as a modus operandi and insists that it does not allow commercial interference with course content or individual student selection decisions.

Schouten said: “We ask advisory board members to think long and hard about curriculum but only on a meta level, not on a content level.”

The contractual permission to exert influence over curricula and student profiles was a “missing nuance,” she accepted. “It is a mistake by us to be honest. We should have phrased it differently.”

“[Neither] Shell nor any other company, directly influences our curriculum for any programmes, be it on the bachelors or the MBA level. But on other hand accreditation bodies require us to work with companies on this meta-level, because they need the students to be employable once they graduate.”

The report though, paints a picture of entanglement that goes far beyond accreditation protocols.

Shell, ExxonMobil, GasTerra and GDF Suez have all paid RSM for advice on how to improve public acceptance of gas drills, in the face of widespread public opposition.

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One RSM professor, Henk Volberda, led a Shell-funded research project in 2008 that advised the government to reduce the tax burden on multinationals, such as Shell. Neither RSM nor Shell disclosed that the project had received more than €300,000 from the fossil fuel giant.

Schouten said that the disclosure had not been made because the research was done for an international consortia. That consortia then requested the bill to be sent only to Shell. “We should have stated that in the report,” she said. “It’s not a secret. It just wasn’t put there.”

The Netherlands’ Association of Universities guidelines say donations should be listed, by “external financiers of scientific activities in particular”.

Volberda later became part of a Dutch government team that advised on improving the condition of corporate headquarters, where he used the research as the basis for more calls for tax cuts, the report says. These were eventually implemented, despite strong criticism by several statutory agencies.

Shell also paid for the launch of an academic journal in 1997 by another RSM professor, Cees Van Riel, which subsequently published an article by the company in its first edition. The funding was not publicised.

That same year, Van Riel co-founded a public relations firm called the Reputation Institute with Charles Fombrun, who went on to work on a rebranding project for Shell, which sold the firm as “the world’s most admired company”.

Schouten denied that Van Riel had any financial involvement with Shell, or that the Reputation Institute had represented them. However, Van Riel’s online profile admits that he has worked with the company and recent Reputation Institute literature cites Shell executives as clients.

The RSM has an unquestionably long relationship with Royal Dutch Shell. In 1966, the firm provided a donation of between €300,000 and €1m to spearhead funding of the university’s graduate school of management – which would become RSM almost 20 years later.

Shell and BP retain positions on the RSM’s advisory board today and participate in formulating its strategy, as well as coordinating RSM activities at annual dinners, the study says.

NOTE: A quote from Schouten was amended. The original rendering was “Shell more than any other company, directly influences our curriculum”. This was misheard.

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The Maasvlakte 3 plant was worth €700m at the end of 2016, owner Uniper’s annual report showed, less than half its €1.5bn value at the beginning of the year – its first full year of operations. Its construction cost was €1.7bn.

Engie also wrote €168m off its Netherlands conventional power generation assets, of which its Maasvlakte coal plant is the most substantial.

Opened in 2015, the plants are among the most efficient in Europe, but have been caught out by market and political shifts. Falling EU electricity demand, surging renewable generation and a court order for the Netherlands to make deeper carbon cuts have undermined their profitability.

Energy consultant Gerard Wynn, who picked out the data buried in the financial results, said they cast “new doubt on the wisdom of planned new coal power plants by utilities in Poland, the Western Balkans and Germany”.

Report: Brand new Dutch coal plants are crashing in value

Eurelectric, the industry body for EU power generators, acknowledged the new market reality in a statement last week. Its members, with the exception of those in Poland and Greece, did not intend to invest in new coal plants after 2020, it said.

Uniper is continuing to build a coal power station in Datteln, Germany, however. It will generate supply district heating as well as power and may benefit from a mooted scheme to pay conventional generators for being available to back up renewables.

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Western Europe’s fourth largest port saw coal volumes fall 7.5% to 16 million tonnes last year and expects a further 29% decrease over the next five years.

The Netherlands shipping hub is seeking to accelerate a low carbon transition by encouraging innovative start-ups and investing in clean energy.

Chief executive Koen Overtoom said in a statement: “In pursuing this strategy, we are deliberately and literally making room for the development of new activities and innovations. This is sensible from an economic point of view and more sustainable, as well as promoting employment.”

New industries at the port include a factory that converts water-softening granules into chemical products and a project to extract valuable materials from used disposable nappies.

The port exports waste heat to Amsterdam city, co-owns a wind farm and is building a 100,000 square metre solar array for completion by 2020.

Trade in oil products like petrol and kerosene is set to continue expanding in the short term, according to the five-year plan. It will remain a key activity “as long as no adequate alternatives are available in our society”.

Official stats: China coal use fell again in 2016, solar capacity rose 82%
TERI: India may never need another coal plant

Several European countries have stopped burning coal or announced phase-out plans over the next 15 years, touting it as one of the cheapest ways to slash greenhouse gas emissions. Others, notably Germany and Poland, foresee decades of coal power generation, fuelled by domestic mines.

The Netherlands itself is home to three of the newest coal plants in Western Europe, but these are losing value and threatened with early closure as climate policies bite.

Think-tank Climate Analytics says the EU must end coal burning by 2030 under the internationally agreed goal to hold global warming “well below 2C”.

The seaborne coal trade is pivoting to Asia, where the polluting fuel is still seen as the cheapest way to meet growing electricity demand. It remains uncertain how many of those power plants will be built, however. China, the biggest market, is cracking down on excess power capacity, while India’s network infrastructure is playing catch-up with a growth in generation. Air pollution and climate concerns are driving take-up of renewables.

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The post Port of Amsterdam set to be coal-free by 2030 appeared first on Climate Home News.

Backed with €1 million from the Dutch government and further support from Japan and the UN Environment Programme, the project is being billed as an adaptation skills-hub.

“I’m not looking for a theoretical institute,” Dutch environment minister Sharon Dijksma told Climate Home, stressing the need to ramp up support for at-risk countries.

“If Bangladesh asks us for help in making an adaptation programme we could support it by organising that – we know a lot about combatting rising sea levels.”

Other areas of focus are likely to include climate resilient crops, water management and the potential to use new technologies to boost farming efficiency, she said.

These kind of preparations are essential for vulnerable and developing countries given the projected impacts of climate change, highlighted in a 2014 report from the UN IPCC climate science panel.

#Russia has just started work on a #climate adaptation plan due in 2018, reports Olga Dobrovidova @thegreendrafts https://t.co/vSMwHD7P9N

— Climate Home News (@ClimateHome) February 7, 2017

The €1 million funding would not reduce the Netherlands support for global adaptation projects it is committed to, but it could help leverage more funding for an under-resourced issue, Dijksma stressed.

“We [developed countries] made a promise to deliver $100 billion by 2020 and this will not prevent that, but €1m here could have a multiplier effect far bigger than that,” she said.

Of the $367 billion directed towards climate-rated projects in 2014, just $27 billion was allocated for adaptation, a Climate Policy Initiative study revealed in late 2016.

Bangladeshi climate adaptation expert Saleemul Huq welcomed the initiative, and urged the centre to take advantage of his country’s deep knowledge of community based adaptation.

“Setting up a global centre of excellence on adaptation to climate change in the Netherlands is an excellent initiative as they have a lot of experience in structural adaptation solutions,” he added.

“This needs to be a centre that genuinely supports, empowers and benefits those on the ground, with locally-relevant and people-centred solutions,” said Harjeet Singh, ActionAid’s global climate change lead.

“We hope that this initiative will also help strengthen national and regional institutions in vulnerable countries, which are still in dire need of resources for research and implementation.”

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The post Netherlands invests €1m in global climate adaptation centre appeared first on Climate Home News.

The utilities behind them failed to foresee a rapid rise in renewable power generation, falling demand and calls for a coal phase-out to meet climate goals.

It was a costly error that countries like Turkey, Japan, South Korea and Poland should learn from, according to a report from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA).

“The Netherlands case shows how policy and markets no longer support new coal-fired power plants,” the report said.

“The Dutch mistake tells utilities and investors to think twice about investing new coal-fired power plants. And it tells investors not to rely on the orthodox energy outlook of utilities.”

Weekly briefing: Sign up for your essential climate politics update

The trio of power stations, built by RWE, Engie and Uniper (a spinoff of Eon), are some of the most efficient in Europe. But their timing could not have been worse.

Surging wind and solar installations since the start of the decade, coupled with weak demand, have depressed wholesale power prices across Europe, hitting conventional generators hard.

In 2013, the report documents, RWE wrote down the value of its Dutch coal and gas portfolio by €2.3 billion. That same year, Engie took a €1.7bn hit to Dutch thermal power plants.

Then came a shock court ruling in favour of campaign group Urgenda, forcing the Dutch government to tighten its greenhouse gas emissions target for 2020.

It intensified a debate about exiting coal, one of the cheapest ways to reduce emissions – provided the plant owners are not too greedy for compensation.

Uniper cited the prospect of mandatory early closures in its first half results for 2016, writing down its coal plants in the Netherlands, France and Germany by €1.8bn.

Report: Netherlands accounting fudge reduces 2020 carbon cuts

A carbon accounting change in September relieved some of the pressure on government to find quick emissions cuts. Still, it was swiftly followed by a parliamentary vote calling for a tough 55% emissions reduction on 1990 levels by 2030, with a timetable for ending unabated coal use.

The government was due to set out its strategy for rising to the climate challenge in late November. It may look to burning wood fuel or capturing CO2 emissions and pumping them under the North Sea as alternatives to shuttering the plants.

That could give a shot in the arm to the long-delayed €500m ROAD carbon capture and storage project attached to the Maasvlakte 3 plant in Rotterdam. Allard Castelein, chief executive of the Port of Rotterdam Authority, told Reuters in July he expected a final investment decision by the end of the year.

“Regardless of if or when these plant are retired, the mere prospect of their closing just a year after opening is a vivid demonstration of the extreme risk in building coal-fired power plants today,” the IEEFA analysis warned.

Many developed countries are moving away from coal, with Canada and Finland the latest to announce 2030 end dates.

But there are still some OECD members with major coal fleets in the pipeline: Turkey (74GW), Japan (22GW), South Korea (20GW) and Poland (9GW).

While Turkey may be able to count on a growing population to create a market for power expansion, the report said Japan was facing similar trends to the Netherlands.

The post Brand new Dutch coal plants are crashing in value appeared first on Climate Home News.

Ordered by a court to cut greenhouse gas emissions 25% from 1990 levels by 2020, the authorities were under pressure to close new coal power  plants.

In a convenient twist for reluctant ministers, the latest national energy outlook shows that target is much closer than previously thought. The official emissions forecast for 2020 is now a 23% cut, up from 17% a year ago.

Economics minister Henk Kamp claimed in a statement this showed the success of a 2013 energy agreement, which predates the landmark court ruling. An official response to the Urgenda case is due out in late November.

Green groups maintain that stronger action is needed to meet the spirit of the court judgment – and ambition of the UN climate deal struck in Paris.

Report: Climate campaigners win court case against Dutch government

The new numbers owe more to methodological tweaks than carbon-cutting initiatives, lead analyst Michael Hekkenberg explained on the Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands website.

Under the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change guidelines on methane’s global warming potential, the 1990 baseline emissions have been revised up. “This revision is obviously not good news for the climate,” Hekkenberg stressed.

Meanwhile, the forecast 2020 emissions have been revised down, but largely due to shifting assumptions about renewable power imports and declining energy demand.

To keep the same level of absolute emissions cuts, Hekkenberg said the 25% target translated to 28%.

Marjan Minnesma, head of Urgenda, which brought the lawsuit with nearly 900 citizens, told Climate Home they would keep pushing for higher ambition.

The government is appealing against the ruling and Urgenda is due to submit its arguments in defence of the original decision this January.

“We are still in court, so we can also bring new things on the table, which might change the figures,” said Minnesma. “There is no reason to be optimistic for our government.”

Report: Netherlands enters appeal against climate ruling

On the line are three coal plants opened in 2014 and 2015. Closing at least one of these power stations would be the cheapest way to meet the 2020 target, according to analysis from CE Delft before the new figures came out.

Economics minister Henk Kamp swiftly rebuffed that verdict. “They are the cleanest [coal plants] in Europe, we’d be crazy if we shut them,” he told Dutch television last month.

The plant’s operators have indicated they would sue for compensation if forced to shut down. Ironically, their closure would also dent the country’s renewable energy statistics, as they partly run on biomass.

Geert Warringa, author of the CE Delft analysis, which was commissioned by the European Climate Foundation and Eneco, said these plant closures might no longer be necessary.

The latest numbers suggest the government need only find cuts of 6 million tonnes CO2 in 2020, not the 7-10Mt his research was based on.

“If the gap is only 6Mt, then it is questionable if a new coal-fired plant should close down to meet it,” Warringa told Climate Home. “On the other hand, there are still large uncertainty boundaries around those new estimates.”

The post Netherlands accounting fudge reduces 2020 carbon cuts appeared first on Climate Home News.

The climate case appeal was debated in parliament (Wikimedia Commons/Markus Bernet)

By Megan Darby

The Dutch government has appealed against a court order to target deeper greenhouse gas emission cuts.

In July, district judges ruled the Netherlands must reduce emissions at least 25% from 1990 levels by 2020. Existing policies are set to yield 17%.

It was a groundbreaking victory for campaign group Urgenda, which brought the case backed by almost 900 citizens.

But after a parliamentary debate last week, the government confirmed plans to challenge the verdict in the Appeals Court.

Environment minister Wilma Mansveld questioned the judge’s interpretation of the state’s “duty of care” towards citizens – a crucial factor in the case.

That could have implications for other policy areas, she said.

Analysis: Around the world in 5 climate change lawsuits

The decision comes two months ahead of a UN summit in Paris, where 195 countries are set to strike a global climate deal.

Marjan Minnesma, director of Urgenda, said it showed the Netherlands was “still not treating this issue with the urgency it so desperately needs”.

Members of a number of opposition parties proposed the government fast-track the matter to the Supreme Court. Both sides have committed to fight all the way and this would save resources, they argued.

That would mean accepting the facts of the case, however, which the government was not prepared to do.

The whole process could take 2-3 years, with a verdict on the initial appeal not expected before the end of 2016.

Minnesma said she had “full confidence” in the outcome.

Meanwhile, the government has pledged to start working towards a 25% target.

A similar case is under way in Belgium and campaigners are preparing lawsuits in Norway, France, Switzerland and Australia, lawyer Dennis van Berkel told Climate Home.

The post Netherlands enters appeal against climate ruling appeared first on Climate Home News.

The low-lying Netherlands are vulnerable to sea level rise (Flickr/Mark Fletcher)

By Megan Darby

The Dutch government plans to appeal against a court order to increase its ambition on climate change, it revealed on Tuesday.

District judges ruled in June that the Netherlands must target deeper greenhouse gas emissions cuts, in line with science presented by campaign group Urgenda.

In a letter to the chairman of the House of Representatives, infrastructure and environment minister Wilma Mansveld said it was “desirable” to test the landmark judgment in a higher court.

While awaiting the outcome, the government will start implementing the order, she wrote, which demands a 25% cut in emissions from 1990 levels by 2020.

The decision comes in spite of a popular campaign, backed by Hollywood star Mark Ruffalo and model Cameron Russell, to accept the original ruling.

Using the hashtag #ganietinberoep – “do not appeal” – people tweeted at Mark Rutte, the country’s prime minister, and Labour Party environment spokesperson Diederik Samsom.

Mark Rutte @MinPres and @diederiksamsom – please accept the climate verdict – #ganietinberoep! #klimaatzaak pic.twitter.com/F8ycAeUgC6

— Cameron Russell (@CameronCRussell) August 10, 2015

Duidelijke videoboodschap Hollywood acteur @MarkRuffalo #ganietinberoep #klimaatzaak @MinPres @diederiksamsom @NOS pic.twitter.com/DjSk4U2JGI

— Urgenda (@urgenda) August 11, 2015

Lawmakers are set to discuss the matter at a hearing on 10 September, followed by a full parliamentary debate. The deadline to appeal is 24 September.

If parliament sides with the district court judges, it could be “politically difficult” for the government to go ahead with the appeal, according to Urgenda’s lawyer Dennis van Berkel.

Analysis: What does historic court ruling mean for Dutch climate policy?

Marjan Minnesma, director of Urgenda, which brought the original case backed by 900 citizens, expressed confidence in the robustness of the judgment.

“The government knows 25% is not nearly enough if you consider the enormity of the dangers that climate change poses to us,” she said.

“Much more is needed, so we hope that politicians in the Netherlands will take their responsibility and make a true effort to speed up the transition towards a 100% sustainable economy. We have been waiting for political leadership on this topic for a very long time.”

It remains uncertain whether the government will go to the Court of Appeal or straight to the Supreme Court. Minnesma urged ministers to choose the latter course, saying it would “save a lot of time and money on both sides”.

Analysis: Around the world in 5 climate change lawsuits

The district court ruling rested on the principle that the government has a duty of care towards its citizens.

Urgenda presented evidence that developed countries need to cut 25-40% from 1990 levels by 2020 to limit global warming to 2C, the internationally agreed goal.

With policies putting the Netherlands on track for just 17%, the government was failing to protect Dutch people from climate threats like sea level rise, the campaign group said.

Three judges agreed, saying the state “should not hide behind” the argument that it could not tackle climate change alone.

But respecting the government’s discretion over policymaking, they only required it to make 25% cuts, the lower end of the range.

Urgenda’s victory has inspired similar legal challenges in Belgium and the Netherlands, with environmental lawyers in Australia also considering courtroom action.

The post Dutch government to appeal court ruling on climate change appeared first on Climate Home News.

Marjan Minnesma addresses environmentalists in Brisbane (Screenshot)

By Megan Darby

Marjan Minnesma got a warm welcome in Brisbane this week.

Described as a “climate litigation rockstar” by independent journalism site New Matilda, she is the head of Dutch campaign group Urgenda.

That NGO, backed by hundreds of citizens, last month won an unprecedented legal victory forcing the Netherlands government to cut greenhouse gas emissions faster.

“The verdict brought hope and inspiration to communities around the world,” said Jo-Anne Bragg, principal lawyer at the Queensland branch of Australia’s Environmental Defenders Office.

She was introducing Minnesma, who is touring Australia, to greens at a webcast event on Tuesday.

They wanted to know: Could Urgenda’s remarkable achievement be replicated on the other side of the world?

Report: Campaigners win court case against Dutch government

Urgenda – so named to highlight the urgency of climate action – did not always operate through the courts.

It aimed to be a positive force, Minnesma explains, promoting the good stuff rather than fighting the bad.

She describes a somewhat improvised scheme to bulk-buy solar panels for 50,000 people, negotiating a third off the price from a Chinese supplier.

Up against a one month deadline and without any experience of sales or credit with the banks, the NGO pulled it off.

Meanwhile, the Dutch government was targeting a 15-17% cut in emissions from 1990 levels by 2020.

Based on evidence from the UN’s climate science panel, Urgenda argued industrialised countries should be achieving 25-40% to limit global warming to 2C.

‘Crowd-pleading’

The lawsuit came in when Urgenda lost patience with the sluggish low carbon transition, says Minnesma: “We were moving in the right direction, but not quickly enough.”

Again, it involved mobilising people or “crowd-pleading”. Some 900 citizens signed up as co-plaintiffs.

In a 2014 report, the NGO set out how 40% was technically and financially feasible. But doubts lingered about the court’s ability to overrule a democratically elected government on the issue.

“Everybody said it is impossible and this must be a PR stunt,” she says. Even the legal team, despite confident pronouncements, was not certain of success.

Duty of care

The case rested on the idea government has a duty of care to its citizens. By failing to set policies consistent with the international 2C goal, it was neglecting that duty.

Three judges agreed. In their verdict, they respected the government’s discretion over policymaking, but said it must do the minimum within its power to prevent dangerous climate change – a 25% cut.

They deserve a Nobel prize for their progressive stance, says Minnesma. And she is full of confidence campaigners can get similar results elsewhere in the world.

She tells the Australian audience: “80% of what we have done you can simply use. You don’t need to do the research again. The last part is in your own legal system.”

Report: Abbott told to cut Australia emissions 30% by 2025

With a 2020 target to cut emissions 5% on 2000 levels, Australia is viewed as a laggard on climate action internationally.

Prime minister Tony Abbott has shown hostility to the climate agenda, scrapping a carbon tax, attacking renewables and embracing coal.

Yet a recent poll found nearly two thirds of Australians want the government to “commit to significant reductions” in emissions ahead of December’s critical Paris climate summit.

The Environmental Defender’s Office has a record of protecting animal species or ecosystems from potentially damaging human developments.

Increasingly, climate change comes into the equation as its lawyers seek to block coal mines in Queensland and New South Wales.

“Australia has a very conservative legal system”

Sue Higginson, lawyer at the New South Wales branch, shows excitement at the idea of going beyond project-level fights to the big picture.

There are a number of reasons it could be harder to win in Australia than the Netherlands, however.

“Australia has a very conservative legal system,” says Higginson. “We would have substantial and significant difficulties if we were to walk in in the same way.”

It has a more restrictive concept of “duty of care”, for one thing. It applies to doctors treating patient but doesn’t necessarily extend to governments.

Even if that were overcome, Higginson says, the onus would be on campaigners to show Australia’s inaction was directly causing climate damage.

With the country contributing around 1.5% of global emissions, government could argue its policies are not critical to the warming trend.

The Dutch judges explicitly rejected that line of argument, but Australia’s case law is different.

Law changes

All the same, says Higginson, EDO is looking in the “crevices and crannies” of the system for ways past those difficulties.

Minnesma is upbeat: “There are many chances for Australia, because you do have a democratic system, even though it might not be working perfectly…

“Law is not a static thing; law changes over time on the basis of norms in society.”

As the Urgenda case showed, it is not necessary to have millions of backers – a few hundred committed individuals can make an impact.

And Australia has plenty of scope to cut emissions, Minnesma says: “You have much more sun for solar power – you have all kinds of chances of making a new economy.”

The post Could Australians sue for stronger climate action? appeared first on Climate Home News.

The scales of justice are weighing the evidence for climate action (Flickr/James Cridland)

By Megan Darby

When a Dutch district court ordered the Netherlands government to up its climate game, campaigners were overjoyed.

For the first time ever, last month judges accepted human rights arguments for demanding a country make deeper greenhouse gas emissions cuts.

“The State must do more to avert the imminent danger caused by climate change,” read the verdict.

The case, brought by pressure group Urgenda, does not set a binding precedent for any other jurisdiction. But it has emboldened environmental lawyers around the world in drawing up their own lawsuits.

“The legal arguments that we used in the case… are not unique to the Netherlands,” lawyer Dennis van Berkel told RTCC.

Top legal experts from around the world in March inked the Oslo Principles on climate change, setting out clear obligations on states and businesses.

“Avoiding severe global catastrophe is a moral and legal imperative,” they declared.

Here are five legal battles to watch.

1) Klimaatzaak, Belgium

Launched by 11 leading lights in December 2014, the Klimaatzaak (literally “climate case”) campaign has signed up 9,000 citizens as co-plaintiffs. That’s ten times the number behind Urgenda’s bid.

They are calling for a 40% cut in greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels by 2020. That is the deeper end of the range Urgenda demanded. The Dutch court only went as far as 25%.

With its champions including well-known figures from the worlds of TV, art and business, the launch got plenty of coverage domestically – not all supportive.

Sarah van Riel, the campaign’s only paid employee on two days a week, told RTCC the Dutch ruling made a “huge difference”.

“We feel that people who were critical about it now believe that it is not stupid,” she said.

The court hearing is expected towards the end of 2016.

Saul Luciano Lliuya fears for his home in Peru (Pic: Germanwatch)

2) Peruvian farmer v RWE

Urgenda merely asked the Dutch government to take more action in future. Saul Luciano Lliuya is arguing that German energy firm RWE should pay compensation for its historic activities.

The Peruvian farmer lives in the floodpath of a glacial lake that is on the verge of bursting its banks as greenhouse gases heat up the climate.

He is asking RWE – one of the EU’s top historical emitters – to pay €20,000 towards work to protect the valley. That is 0.47% of the estimated project cost, based on RWE’s 0.47% share of global emissions between 1751 and 2010.

While the sum is modest, a victory would open the floodgates for thousands if not millions of claims.

In May, RWE rejected the claim, denying responsibility for the risks faced by Luciano Lliuya.

Roda Verheyen, his German lawyer, said her client was “very disappointed” and “taking steps to assess the prospects of success of filing a lawsuit against RWE”. Watch this space.

3) Washington teens

From the geographically vulnerable to the younger generation, those who will feel the effects of climate change most are getting active.

In Washington, US, eight teenagers last month won a case to force the state to consider science-based emissions regulations.

It was the first victory for campaign group Our Children’s Trust, which is bringing similar actions across the country.

The children, aged 11 to 15, wrote in the petition of their concern for the northwestern state’s rugged wilderness.

Aji Piper worried about wildfires and Gabriel Mandell about disappearing beaches, while for Zoe Foster a longer mosquito season and allergies kept her from going camping.

Being too young to vote, they called on the courts to make policymakers protect them from the worsening effects of climate change. The Seattle government must decide by 8 July how to respond.

4) Philippines petition

In a similar vein to Peru v RWE, Greenpeace is looking at ways to sue fossil fuel majors for harm to the world’s most vulnerable to climate change.

Along with local campaign groups, it is drumming up a petition to get the Philippines Commission on Human Rights to investigate.

The Philippines is hit hard by increasingly intense tropical storms such as Typhoon Haiyan, for example, and has limited resources to protect its people.

Greenpeace will argue the likes of Gazprom, Glencore Xstrata and Exxon Mobil are violating the human rights of Filipinos by profiting from climate-polluting energy.

While the Commission cannot directly order those companies to pay compensation to those at the sharp end of global warming, a strong ruling could give leverage for further action.

Pacific island leaders last month declared their intention to challenge these carbon giants in the courts.

Kristin Caspar, legal counsel for Greenpeace, told RTCC: “The courts, as we have seen, are a powerful platform to hear the concerns about climate harm.

“We really feel that this is the time to use the power of the law to hold these companies to account. This is just the start.”

5) Australia action?

Directly inspired by the Urgenda victory, Environmental Justice Australia is canvassing support for a similar lawsuit.

“Although most Australians think the government should take action on climate change, there’s a vast chasm between citizens expectations and reality,” the NGO wrote.

Australia has yet to reveal its contribution to a UN climate deal. Analysts warn the government is considering an emissions target linked to “disastrous” levels of warming.

Prime minister Tony Abbott, who notoriously scrapped the country’s carbon tax, shows little appetite for the climate agenda.

Opportunities to challenge this legally in Australia are different and “probably more limited” than in the Netherlands, Environmental Justice said.

But the campaigners promised to explore all options “as the issue is too urgent to sit idle”.

The post Around the world in 5 climate change lawsuits appeared first on Climate Home News.

Justices deliver the verdict (Photo: Urgenda)

By Alex Pashley

The Dutch government was ordered to make deeper emissions cuts last month, in the first climate change lawsuit of its kind.

Campaigners were euphoric. Commentators talked of precedents set.

But what’s to say the Netherlands will comply?

On 24 June, a district court ruled the state must up its game on climate action.

Ministers must slash CO2 by 25% on 1990 levels within five years, according to the ruling. Pressure group Urgenda successfully argued a prior 17% target wasn’t in step with developed countries’ efforts to curb global warming.

Report: Climate campaigners win court case against Dutch government

“The State must do more to avert the imminent danger caused by climate change, also in view of its duty of care to protect and improve the living environment,” the verdict read.

The government has the right to appeal. But it has agreed to first open the subject to parliamentary debate in the Hague in September.

The prospect of further years of legal wrangling will narrow its window to act.

For years, the Netherlands has trailed in its climate obligations.

In 2012, Dutch emissions were 8.8% lower than 1990. Its share of renewables in final energy consumption increased to 4.5% in 2013, a baby step towards its target of 14% by 2020. Meanwhile, a string of coal-fired plants have come online in recent years.

Despite being one of the richer countries in the EU, the Netherlands is aiming lower than the bloc’s overall target of a 20% renewable share by 2020.

Climate campaigners cheered and hugged each other as the verdict was read out at a district court in the Hague on June 24 (Photo: Urgenda)

The government said it “aims to prevent climate change” and is “working on the implementation of relevant agreements made within Europe”.

Kornelis Blok at energy consultancy Ecofys laments how a country influential in writing the Kyoto Protocol in the 1990s has lapsed.

But reactions to the ruling varied.

“Some people think that it is not for the courts to intervene in what is essentially a political issue; but the environmentalists and others are quite happy,” Joyeeta Gupta, a professor at the University of Amsterdam said in an email.

Marjan Minnesma, who started the case in 2013 backed by 900 Dutch citizens, said they were “overjoyed” by the result.

Dennis van Berkel, Urgenda’s legal counsel noted enthusiastic reactions to the verdict, with a hashtag #ganietinberoep (no to appeal) trending on Twitter.

“Lots of parties have approached us. The positive energy of all of these people show a way forward to finally start acting,” he said.

The official response will depend on how the three-year coalition government’s two parties align.

The largest party, the VVD led by PM Mark Rutte, is economically liberal and counts among its members people “that question climate science,” Blok said from Utrecht.

Coalition partner Labour PvdA has a stronger record of advocating for emissions cuts.

“In the end it comes back to the coalition,” said Blok. “Labour may come from a different viewpoint and decide to support the other [VVD], or it could have a majority with other parties, which would be an important signal.”

Horse-trading over other key votes, however, meant their support could go either way.

For Blok, getting to a 25% cut was “doable, though it’s quite a challenge to ramp up policy making in five years”.

Closing the country’s coal-fired power plants would work, he says, though the Netherlands should eye something “more structural” grounded in energy efficiency and renewables.

Indeed Urgenda says the Netherlands can transition to a 100% sustainable energy supply by 2030, by changing practices in the built environment and in industry.

The solution could be cheaper.

News wire Carbon Pulse reported the government could simply buy 13 million units of UN carbon credits to offset the reductions. That would cost 5 million euros at today’s prices.

A spokesperson at the Ministry for Infrastructure and Environment declined to comment on its position, with the case being examined.

But for lawyer van Berkel, carbon offsets wouldn’t be the “right course of action”.

Now, parliament is in recess and the issue has dropped out of the headlines. But for campaigners, there’s no time to backpedal for the government.

“The government must work on the measures putting their energy into getting CO2 down,” van Berkel said.

The post What does historic court ruling mean for Dutch climate policy? appeared first on Climate Home News.

Judge delivers the verdict (Screenshot/Urgenda livestream)

By Megan Darby

The Netherlands must make deeper greenhouse gas emissions cuts after a landmark judicial ruling.

In a case brought by pressure group Urgenda, judges agreed the Dutch government should do more to combat the threat of climate change.

The low-lying country, which is particularly vulnerable to sea level rise, should slash emissions 25% from 1990 levels by 2020 under the ruling. The state was aiming for 17% and campaigners argued it should be up to 40%, in line with science. Europe-wide, the target is a 20% reduction.

The verdict read: “The State must do more to avert the imminent danger caused by climate change, also in view of its duty of care to protect and improve the living environment. The State is responsible for effectively controlling the Dutch emission levels.

“Moreover, the costs of the measures ordered by the court are not unacceptably high. Therefore, the State should not hide behind the argument that the solution to the global climate problem does not depend solely on Dutch efforts. Any reduction of emissions contributes to the prevention of dangerous climate change and as a developed country the Netherlands should take the lead in this.”

But the judges said they could only recommend a legal protection, not make policy. As a result, they limited their order to a 25% emissions cut, the lower end of the range asked for by Urgenda.

Climate campaigners cheered and hugged each other as the verdict was read out at a district court in the Hague on Wednesday morning.

Pictures say thousands of words! We, @urgenda , everyone in the Netherlands… won!! pic.twitter.com/2E633VQSWE

— Vatan Hüzeir (@VatanHuzeir) June 24, 2015

The decision can be appealed but with several political parties supporting stronger climate action, lawyer Dennis van Berkel told RTCC he thought the government would accept the verdict.

Campaigners are already preparing a similar lawsuit in Belgium and others could follow.

“The legal arguments that we used in the case – and that the court acknowledged exist – are not unique to the Netherlands,” van Berkel said. “All states have this legal obligation.

“Over the last couple of years, we have had a lot of reactions from people who have closely followed the case and are looking to take up this argument in their own countries.”

Earlier this year, legal experts from around the world adopted the Oslo Principles, which stress the obligation of states to act on climate change.

The ruling will also have an impact on UN climate talks in Paris this December, van Berkel said. “Negotiators now know that countries can be taken to court if they don’t agree to what is necessary to prevent dangerous climate change.”

Could it be that lawyers and judges will be able to achieve more for climate ambition than governments that are meant to represent people?

— Christine Ottery (@christineottery) June 24, 2015

Marjan Minnesma, who started the case in 2013 backed by 900 Dutch citizens, said they were “overjoyed” by the result.

“This makes it crystal clear that climate change is a huge problem that needs to be dealt with much more effectively, and that states can no longer afford inaction,” she said.

“States are meant to protect their citizens, and if politicians will not do this of their own accord, then the courts are there to help.”

Other green groups hailed the outcome.

“This is a courageous and visionary ruling,” said James Thornton, CEO of ClientEarth.

“There are moments in history when only courts can address overwhelming problems. In the past it has been issues like discrimination. Climate change is our overwhelming problem and this court has addressed it.

“This result reshapes the playing field for legal action to protect people from climate change. The Dutch court’s ruling should encourage courts around the world to tackle climate change now.”

Wendel Trio, director of Climate Action Network Europe, said: “The verdict is a milestone in the history of climate legislation, because it is the first time that a government was ordered to raise its climate ambition by a court.

“We hope this kind of legal action will be replicated in Europe and around the world, pushing governments who are dragging their feet on climate action to scale up their efforts.”

Urgenda had argued that the Netherlands had slipped from being a leader to a laggard on climate change.

In 2013, renewables supplied 4.5% of energy demand, putting the country some way off its 14% 2020 target and behind its neighbours Germany and Denmark.

“What we are saying is that our government is co-creating a dangerous change in the world,” legal advisor Roger Cox from the firm Paulussen Advocaten told RTCC ahead of the verdict.

“We feel that there’s a shared responsibility for any country to do what is necessary in its own boundaries to mitigate GHG emissions as much as is needed.”

The post Climate campaigners win court case against Dutch government appeared first on Climate Home News.

The Thames Barrier protects London from tidal surges (Flickr/mtarvainen)

By Tim Radford

As polar ice melts, tides could be as much as 1.5 metres higher around the coasts of Scandinavia, Germany, the Netherlands and England, according to a new study.

This is considerably higher than the average sea level rise – driven by global warming as a consequence of burning fossil fuels – projected by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change under a “business as usual” scenario and a global average temperature rise of 4°C.

But there is no contradiction. The discrepancy arises because the seas have never been level and the land keeps moving too.

Aslak Grinsted, researcher at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, and colleagues report in the journal Climate Research that they took a closer look at the dynamics of sea level change in the North Sea, the North Atlantic and the Baltic for the remainder of this century.

Land uplift

“Even though the oceans are rising, they do not rise evenly across the globe,” Grinsted says. “This is partly due to changes in the gravitational field and land uplift.”

He and his colleagues started with the anomalies they knew best. These are in Greenland, which is covered by a sheet of ice so massive that it gathers up the sea around it. So, to reach Greenland, ships must sail uphill.

As the ice sheet melts – and there are studies that show it is melting at an accelerating rate that would heighten sea levels by 14 cm this century – the mass will be reduced and the sea levels will fall, even though more water has entered the oceans.

But although waters are notionally lapping ever higher along coastlines, these too are changing. Northern Europe 12,000 years ago was covered by deep ice, and the bedrock below was depressed. Now the ice has gone, but the land once crushed by it is still rising.

Equipped with the latest research and measurements, the Copenhagen team began their reinterpretation of the local future. They found that what had once been considered “high” scenarios for the Netherlands and England will be surpassed.

Best estimate

For London, the calculated best estimate is that sea level will rise by 0.8 metres. Grinsted says: “In England, a sea level rise of more than 0.9m in this century has been considered highly unlikely, but our new calculation shows that there is a 27% chance that this limit is surpassed, and we cannot exclude a sea level rise of up to 1.75m this century.”

For the Netherlands, the best estimate of sea level rise is 0.83 metres, but the calculations show a 26% chance that it will exceed the existing high-end scenario of 1.05m, and could even reach 1.80m.

Grinsted says: “Both countries have already established protections for the coasts with barriers, sluice gates and dikes, but is it enough? I hope that our calculations for worst-case scenarios will be taken into consideration as the countries prepare for climate change.”

The IPCC sea level projection is of 80cm worldwide. Sea levels overall might change little in Scotland, Ireland and Norway. And in the Gulf of Bothnia, in Finland, where the land is rising even faster than the sea, tides could be as much as 10cm lower at the end of the century.

This article was produced by the Climate News Network

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(Pic: Bigstock)

By Ed King

The Dutch government will have to defend its climate change policies in court next week, when an action brought by campaigners is finally heard by three district judges in the Hague.

The case is believed to be the first where human rights legislation has been used to force a state to explain why it believes its plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are adequate and fair.

Dutch pressure group Urgenda, which is behind the action, started proceedings in 2012 with the support of climate scientist James Hansen, accusing the government of implementing weak clean energy targets.

After an exchange of four letters between both sides, arguments will be heard on April 14. Urgenda’s Marjan Minnesma, who has led the NGO’s campaign, told RTCC she felt they had a strong case.

“The Dutch government is by far not doing enough, they have a goal for 2020 of 14% clean energy and in 2023 16% – it is not really going quickly enough if you want to avoid a catastrophe in this and the next generations,” she said.

“We are standing for what is necessary to do. 10 years ago we would not have tried this but I think things are changing..it’s more clear to a broad group we are heading to a catastrophe.”

Paris tracker: Who has pledged what for 2015 UN climate pact? 

The case comes weeks after a panel of eminent international judges and legal experts from countries including India, Brazil, the US and China released the Oslo Principles, which hold that governments have an obligation to avert dangerous global warming.

Nearly 200 countries – including the Netherlands – are involved in talks on a global climate deal, which is set to be finalised in Paris this December.

Urgenda’s goal is for the court to order officials to cut emissions by up to 40% on 1990 levels by 2020. So far the government has declined to comment on the case.

In the 1990s and early 2000s the Dutch state was regarded as a climate leader, encouraging the development of renewable energy technologies and implementing plans for the low-lying country to cope with rising sea levels.

Those adaptation plans remain some of the most advanced and ambitious around the world, but activists say it is falling behind other EU member states when it comes to clean energy use.

The Netherlands sources 4% of its electricity from renewables, compared to 15% in the UK., and is in the bloc’s top 10 of emissions when calculated per person. Last year it opened three new coal-fired power plants with a total capacity of 2,700 megawatts.

Report: EU commits to cut emissions “at least” 40% by 2030 

Roger Cox from the law firm Paulussen Advocaten, which is advising Urgenda, told RTCC he felt they had a “good chance” of winning the case and suggested it could set a precedent in other countries.

“We are not using exotic legal principles – these are ones that are quite universal in the West. Tort [a civil wrong] and human rights are the basis for our case,” he said.

“What we are saying is that our government is co-creating a dangerous change in the world… we feel that there’s a shared responsibility for any country to do what is necessary in its own boundaries to mitigate GHG emissions as much as is needed.”

Cox said “a lot of lawyers” around the world will be watching the case closely, and cited “respected lawyers” who have suggested the claim has strong grounds.

Minnesma said the action had deep support among many government officials who felt they should be doing more to curb emissions growth.

“As actors of the state they are not allowed to say this…. but there are many people there who hope we win so they can do what we think is necessary – but they are part of a right wing politics and they cannot say what they think,” she said.

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Pic: Moyan Brenn/Flickr

By Sophie Yeo

The Netherlands has pledged €100 million (US $125m) to the Green Climate Fund.

Minister of foreign trade and development cooperation Lilianne Ploumen announced the contribution during a visit to Rwanda on Thursday.

This means the fund has around $2.6 billion, still well short of the $10 billion its executive director Hela Cheikhrouhou says it needs to start work in 2015.

Conceived in 2009, the GCF was created to help developing countries invest in sources of clean energy and prepare for future extreme weather impacts linked to climate change.

“It is important that this fund soon gets to work,” said Ploumen.

Observers hope that between $10-15 billion will be pledged at a meeting next week in Berlin, where countries which have yet to come forward with new cash are expected to reveal their hand.

The Dutch pledge amounts to a fraction of that pledged by Germany and France, who promised US$935 million and US$1 billion respectively.

Once the pledge is weighted in relation to the countries’ economies, the Dutch pledge comes in at around half Germany’s pledge.

“The Dutch should have pledged about €200m to compare to Germany, so it’s not pulling its weight. In that sense we think it could have been better,” said Jan Kowalzig, a climate finance expert at Oxfam Germany.

COMMENT: Obama must deliver at climate fundraiser in Berlin 

He added that it was also a welcome step, as it could encourage other European countries to come forward with more money at next week’s pledging session.

“There are many other countries from the EU which have been silent so far, which are small but which could add up,” he said.

Finland, Spain and Italy are among the European countries which are expected to make pledges.

What the US and Japan choose to pledge next week will also come under scrutiny, as some of the richest countries which have yet to contribute.

Speaking to RTCC, former White House advisor Pete Ogden said the US could be expected to deliver around $2 billion, although no figures have been made publically available.

“If you look back at previous funds such as the Climate Investment Fund, which launched under George W Bush, he pledged $2 billion to that,” he said.

“The Obama administration has continued to working towards fulfilling that pledge every budget. I think that’s an interesting marker – how far north I don’t know.”

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Dutch PM Mark Rutte discussed climate change with Obama today (Source: Flickr/Minister-president Rutte)

By Sophie Yeo

The Netherlands will no longer provide money to new coal projects overseas, announced the prime minister today, joining the US in a bid to stop the growth of coal.

The pact, announced today by President Obama and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, means that the country will stop contributing public money to new coal-fired power stations abroad.

“The Netherlands is joining with the United States and a group of other countries in a bid to stop international public funding of new coal-fired power plants, for example by multilateral development banks,” said Rutte, during a joint press conference with Obama in Amsterdam today.

“We want to achieve an international level playing field, to ensure that private and public parties invest in green growth wherever possible.”

Obama arrived in the Netherlands this morning. His European trip will ostensibly focus on nuclear security, but the crisis in Ukraine is expected to cast a shadow over the proceedings.

Despite this, Rutte said during a press conference this morning that climate change was the first topic that he discussed with Obama during their meeting.

Former Dutch lead climate negotiator Maas Goote said that it was a “surprise” that climate change featured so prominently, given the distraction of Russia’s actions in Crimea.

@rtcc_edking That climate change features prominently in very short statement (on Ukraine and nuclear safety) is a surprise here in NL.

— Maas Goote (@maasgoote) March 24, 2014

UK and Nordic countries

Starving new coal projects of public finance is a method that developed countries are using to stem the growth of coal consumption overseas. Coal is the cheapest source of energy, but also the most polluting.

The US announced that it would no longer finance overseas coal-fired power plants in June last year as part of Obama’s climate action plan. In September, the leaders of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden announced that they would follow suit.

In November, the UK also announced that it would stop supplying money to new coal projects overseas. Energy and climate change Secretary Ed Davey said that it was “completely illogical” for countries like the UK and US to work on cleaning up their own energy sector, while paying for coal-fired power plants in other countries.

The danger of building new coal power plants abroad is that it locks poor countries into a high carbon future, when the world needs to transition towards clean energy if it is to avoid dangerous levels of climate change.

Multilateral banks such as the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development have already pledged to limit their spending on coal-fired power plants, drying up a large pool of resources for such projects: in the year leading up to June 2010, the World Bank spent US$ 3.4bn on new power plants – a quarter of all its energy project funding.

While private investors are free to continue funding projects, limiting public spending signals that investing in coal is becoming increasingly risky, and could encourage them to divert their capital elsewhere.

Climate treaty

In a joint statement, Obama and Rutte said that both countries supported efforts by the UN to scale up the sum of money being spent on climate finance.

By 2020, developed countries have pledged to put US$ 100billion a year into a pot of money called the Green Climate Fund, which will be used to help poorer nations to adapt to climate change and cut their emissions.

“We strive to deploy public resources to catalyze private climate finance in and to developing countries,” they said.

They also reaffirmed their mutual interest in securing a strong deal on climate change, which the UN says must be signed off next year, adding that the new deal should “reflect the continuous evolution of capabilities of countries in tackling this global challenge.”

They said: “Our two countries pledge to continue our cooperation towards adopting such an agreement at the United Nations climate conference in Paris in 2015.”

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Source: Flickr/Luke Ma

By Sophie Yeo

A national effort is underway in the Netherlands to upgrade the thousands of miles of dykes and dams responsible for keeping the country dry. 

As the planet warms, experts say the Netherlands’ network of flood defences will no longer be able to hold up against rising sea levels, and this autumn, the government will explain how it plans to hold the sea back for another century.

In 2007, an investigation was launched into whether the the famously low-lying country could survive at all should projections of almost a metre of sea level rise by the end of the century come to pass.

A committee concluded that life could go on in the Netherlands, but work must begin immediately to upgrade the country’s 3,700km of dykes, dunes and dams, which hold back the water in the country’s most vulnerable coastal areas.

On the committee’s advice, a Delta Programme was set up, which began work on a new policy framework for the country that will be put before Parliament this September, including five “Delta Decisions” that will form the basis of the country’s new water strategy.

These five decisions lay out concrete ideas on how the Netherlands can deal with some of the biggest challenges posed by their troublesome geography.

The proposals will renew the government’s strategy on water safety and flood risk management, the future scarcity of freshwater supplies, and spatial planning of new buildings and infrastructure.

They also propose specific plans for the most vulnerable regions of the Netherlands, the IJsselmeer region and the Rhine-Meuse Delta.

Delta Programme

The Dutch government’s orginal plans were prompted by the release of Al Gore’s 2006 documentary “An Inconvenient Truth”, which raised the spectre of ever rising sea levels.

“It started with Gore,” says Jos van Alphen, from the Delta Commissioner’s office, the group responsible for the programme. “Partly as a result of that, the Dutch government wondered whether we can continue living in the Netherlands due to climate change.”

The Netherlands already has a flood strategy in place — a Delta Act was passed in 1959 in the wake of devastating floods that killed 1,836 people six years before — but van Alphen explains that the new proposals will take this next stage of protection in a new direction to cope with arising challenges.

He says: “Flood risk standards will be more directed to avoid fatalities and societal disruption. As we have seen in New York, modern societies, especially very densely populated urban areas, are very vulnerable to flooding because of electricity and transport that might be affected.”

Social and economic changes since the 1960s in the Netherlands have provided a further prompt to upgrade the flood defences.

Willem Ligtvoet, an advisor to the Dutch government on flooding, from the PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency says: “Since the old standards were first proposed the population has grown, the economic value of flood sensitive areas has grown enormously and we know a lot better the quality of our dykes.”

Another round of floods in 1995 inspired a 20-year programme to improve the country’s flood defences, including a scheme called ‘room for the river’. But the new strategy does not have a finite end point. “With the Delta Programme, we are aware that the work is never done, that you always have to continue,” says van Alphen.

Opportunities

A long history of exposure to flooding means that the Dutch are experts when it comes to building defences, both technically and politically.

For centuries, the nation performed the role of international agony aunt when other countries found themselves beset by water problems.

Examples range from the 17th century decision to draft in Dutch engineer Cornelius Vermuyden to find a way to drain the Cambridgeshire Fens, to more recent knowledge sharing in the wake of restoration and delta planning in New Orleans, Vietnam, Bangladesh and Somerset.

When it comes to their own strategy, the Dutch are approaching the problem with equal gravity. The government has set aside up to €1 billion a year up to 2100, as part of the national budget.

Sensing a financial opportunity, this has drawn business into the plan, says van Alphen. “Industry is interested because they see a lot of work, but also large opportunities for new innovations and they can be exported to other countries, and they can earn money from those innovations as well.”

Local communities are also largely on board, he says, in spite of the fact that some may face relocation as dykes and levees are strengthened. This is due to the fact that schemes to improve local areas with parks and recreational areas have been built into the plans, but also because there is a great deal of trust in the government to deal with the flood defences as necessary.

In the Netherlands, defences are so well organised that people aren’t scared of flooding anymore,” says Ligtvoet. “The Dutch people think it’s taken care of: we won the fight against water.”

Adaptation

Once the Dutch government has embedded these new strategies into its legislation, it will have concretely achieved something that some countries are still struggling with conceptually: it will have established a long term, well funded climate adaptation plan, which aims to prepare the country for all eventualities.

“The details of climate change are uncertain. It might be very gentle, or it might accelerate,” says van Alphen. “It’s very difficult to design measures for a specific future situation, because you don’t know exactly what that situation will be.

“Therefore, in our Delta Programme, we try to develop adaptive strategies and use flexible measures in order to make it possible to speed up or slow down when climate change accelerates or keeps the same pace as now.

“In certain countries, people say ‘Let’s wait and see,’ but in our situation we think ‘No, uncertainty is not an excuse for waiting.’ We try to enforce that in our decision making.”

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Source: Tom Jefferson / Greenpeace

Russia: The Netherlands asked an international court on Wednesday to order Russia to release 30 people detained during a Greenpeace protest against oil drilling in the Arctic at a tribunal Moscow refused to attend. (Reuters)

Australia: Australia will have no government minister at the main United Nations climate negotiations next week, for the first time since the Kyoto accord in 1997. Diplomat Justin Lee, Australia’s ambassador for climate change, will represent the country at international talks in Poland, which are seen as vital to laying the groundwork for a global agreement to cut carbon emissions. (Guardian)

Research: Levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere reached a record high in 2012, according to a report from the World Meteorological Organization. (RTCC)

China: Chinese cities should close schools, cut working hours and stop outdoor activities during the most severe spells of air pollution, the Ministry of Environmental Protection said on Wednesday. (Reuters)

Research: Large palm oil companies that have promised to act ethically have been accused of land grabbing, ignoring human rights and exploiting labour in their African and Asian plantations. In a damning 400-page investigation, the companies are variously charged with impacting on orangutan populations, destroying tropical forest and burning and draining large tracks of peat swamp forest. (Guardian)

UK: Changes to the UK’s carbon targets could undermine its influence on UN climate negotiations, the Climate Change Committee has warned. (RTCC)

Borneo: BHP Billiton has been urged to step away from plans to open up an area of central Borneo to mining, with conservationists warning that it could damage a region inhabited by remote communities and the endangered orangutan. (Guardian)

Antarctica: Regions of Antarctica could hold 1.5 million year-old ice that would reveal key parts of Earth’s ancient climate history, new research suggests. (CS Monitor)

UK: Senior members of the Conservative party openly question the threat of climate change, UK Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg will warn in a speech on Thursday. (RTCC)

UN: If policymakers fail to consider carefully how they define forests, they risk compromising the potential success of the UN-backed REDD+ program, which aims to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, scientists say. (CIFOR)

Research: The world’s richest countries are “shooting themselves in both feet” by providing high subsidies to the fossil fuel industry, according to a report from the Overseas Development Institute. (RTCC)

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(Pic: Armin Kubelbeck)

By Nilima Choudhury

A coalition of business, politicians and NGOs have published a ‘National Energy Agreement’ to scale up renewable energy generation and energy efficiency measures to meet Holland’s 2020 targets.

The policy looks to increase the proportion of energy generated from renewable sources from 4.4% to 14% in 2020 with an investment of €375 million, together with proposals to shut down five coal power plants by 2017.

The authors say this will help the country to achieve a 60% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2050 compared to 1990 levels.

Led by the Social and Economic Council of the Netherlands (SER), more than forty organisations were involved in creating the Energy Agreement for Sustainable Growth. Dozens of scientists, business people, politicians and other Dutch stakeholders also contributed their ideas and insights to this process.

Although this lacks any legislative clout, Marga Hoek, president of business association De Groene Zaak and and directly involved in the negotiations told RTCC that this approach demonstrates the power of consensus of Dutch society in addressing complicated socio-economic issues.

“This agreement combines both sustainability and economy. It meets our goals in energy reduction, but also boosts the economy by creating new business and new jobs.”

Hoek stressed that the targets being set in the agreement are leading and fixed. “Now that we’ve reached this agreement, we will closely monitor its implementation. If the targets can’t be met due to old laws and legislation, we will make sure that measures will be implemented to reach the goals”.

Energy

This approach has been compared by some analysts to Germany’s climate friendly Energiewiende, or energy transition.

What makes it more challenging is that compared to other European countries, the Netherlands has a relatively large reserve of fossil energy carriers.

Three coal power stations are expected to be closed down on 1 January 2015 with the two remaining due for closure on 1 July 2017. The parties involved have made plans for the employees of these plants to get help to find new jobs and to provide attractive redundancy packages.

The policy expects at least 15,000 additional full time jobs to be created, so ex-fossil fuel employees should have plenty of options.

In terms of renewable energy, €25 million will be put towards research and developments in 2014 increasing to €50 million by 2017.

Currently, biomass accounts for more than 70% of all renewable energy and wind power for slightly less than 20%.

Other sources, including hydropower, solar energy and geothermal energy, accounted for just over 10% of all electricity consumption in 2012, approximately a half percentage point more than in 2011.

The policy looks to scale up offshore wind in particular to 4,450MW by 2023. For onshore wind power the country hopes to achieve 6000MW by 2020

Hoek is confident that the country will be able to meet the objectives laid out in the policy.

“It’s a real big turning point. It’s a huge step from the past. If you want to make big changes you need all parties joining forces to get it done. You need politicians, government, business and the NGOs.

“This broad consensus ensures long term commitment to agreements like these. Our association will use the same approach for future agreements on raw materials and the food and agricultural business. This is the best way to safeguard a top ten position for our country in the global economic rankings”.

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