2023-05-07 08:41:00
The climate policy of this government appears to have been saved with a large package of measures. There is enough money, but veterans Pieter Winsemius and Jan Terlouw, forerunners in environmental policy, miss the inspiring, concrete story that inspires people.
With a giant swing, Minister Rob Jetten (climate and energy) dropped a package of no fewer than 120 measures at the House of Representatives last week to save climate policy. The cabinet was quite pleased with it. Another difficult dossier (provisionally) updated on a subject on which the coalition is strongly divided internally. Given the increasing criticism that this government team would deliver too little, the relief was visible in both Jetten and Prime Minister Mark Rutte.
Former minister Pieter Winsemius was less impressed. What do these measures, from the construction of solar parks at sea to subsidies on second-hand cars, mean in concrete terms for citizens and for making the Netherlands sustainable? Winsemius, who as a former minister is the patriarch of modern environmental policy, has no idea. “Are you tempted by 120 measures at once? Well, not me.”
The VVD member did not discover any cohesion, let alone a motivating story to take people into a vista that inspires and gives perspective. “A bucket of 28 billion euros was simply put on the table and everyone was allowed to grab it as they pleased. Then you get this. But does this also get commitment from society? I doubt it.”
One hundred calls in one hundred days
Significant, as far as he was concerned, was the absence of any protest. “I find that creepy when there is a new policy. Apparently no sharp choices were made then.” There was some criticism, but it was predictable. The radical right found the policy ‘excessive and unaffordable’, the SP denounced the ‘drawing table plans’ that are unattainable for people ‘where the water is already up to their lips’.
GroenLinks Member of Parliament Suzanne Kröger might live with the measures, but lacked the ‘inspiration that this climate policy so desperately needs’. A ‘hopeful story’ with ‘this is where we are going, with cleaner air, more space for nature, good use of raw materials’. Instead, she envisioned a climate policy more akin to “some sort of CO2accounting’, while it concerns a ‘system change’ that is necessary for a ‘climate-neutral society’.
These were comments that were in line with – once more – a new organization that cares regarding the climate: the National Climate Platform (NKP). Chairman Kees Vendrik, former member of parliament for GroenLinks, had had a hundred conversations with young and old in a hundred days and wrote to Jetten: ‘For the implementation of sound policy, it is important that citizens and entrepreneurs understand that the measures fit into a perspective of a more sustainable , more beautiful and future-proof Netherlands. This call for a concrete perspective can be heard from many quarters. I support that. Younger generations in particular need this in view of the seriousness of the climate crisis.’
Struggle with the agricultural file
Criticism that seems to make sense. Rob Jetten held a press conference during the presentation of his plans in which he summed up the most important measures in a fast train and dutifully. The minister only reported that the Netherlands will become ‘more beautiful, cleaner and more prosperous’. The voter who might watch at home (on NPO Politics) was not presented with any prospects, but mainly the number of megatons of CO2 that the various sectors will have to cough up in the coming years to the intended goal of climate neutrality in 2035 (for the electricity sector), 2040 (industry) or 2050 (buildings and offices).
Even the target image therefore looked fragmented. Plus the fact that nothing sensible can be said regarding agriculture yet, because in that dossier the government is mainly struggling with the nitrogen measures, which should also benefit the climate.
The pots of money are also ready there, regarding 24 billion euros. But sufficient money often does not lead to clear, cohesive and directional policy, former minister Pieter Winsemius knows from his many years of experience. “Apparently the cabinet pays for everything, then you have a lot of friends. But the question is whether that leads to a motivated movement in the right direction.”
What are we doing all this for?
On his estate in Twello, Jan Terlouw sighs. Spring greenery is budding around him and a couple of storks are mating in front of his house. The horrors of a climate crisis seem far away here. But the former party leader of D66 and former deputy prime minister still follows politics closely. “Well, Rob Jetten does what he can, but is it enough?” For example, he is annoyed that the cabinet is still not drawing a line through the billions in fossil subsidies. A controversial issue for which the protest club Extinction Rebellion is getting more and more people on their feet. That is something concrete in the field of climate that apparently sets people in motion.
Terlouw also lacks a ‘story’ why we all do it and where we are going. “I have lost sight of that. I assume we CO2emissions and that we are making progress with it. But how? I do not see it.” Many people understand that everyone has to surrender. “But they see in practice that farmers have to do that and Tata Steel doesn’t. That is incomprehensible.”
A different economy with less growth
Moreover, the climate crisis cannot be solved with the current system, he is convinced of that. More and more economists believe that economic growth will not achieve the objectives. “We have to move towards a different economy, with less growth. I don’t know if that will work, but it should. It is urgent. The task is gigantic, I realize that. Over the past 200 years, we have built a global fossil infrastructure that needs to be replaced as soon as possible.”
Because Terlouw is annoyed by this, he started writing an inspiring story himself at the age of 91. “I’m working on an essay. I just don’t have much energy left. And who can I still reach? But I do want it.”
Make it more manageable
In 2018, his former colleague Pieter Winsemius also wrote an essay in which he called on politicians to get people involved in climate politics by means of a proverbial dot on the horizon. Without them, politics will mainly remain ‘short-sighted’, he warned. “All change starts with a warming story in an understandable language,” he wrote.
Winsemius still supports that. The urgency is even greater than ever, although he admits that the ‘climate’ around the climate has changed enormously in five years. “Support has grown enormously, from left to right in the Chamber, apart from some obscure parties. That is pure profit.”
As far as he is concerned, the story that the cabinet should propagate consists of no more than three themes and no ‘120 things’. But perhaps at least as important: also make it smaller, more manageable for people. That they see that something is changing. Less biodiversity is abstract, that the black-tailed godwit is threatened and must be saved is not, a project Winsemius is now committed to. “We did the same with the Wadden Sea, where the seal was a tangible target. So did the acid rain in the eighties: the trees died and images of Mary with Jesus on her arm melted away, you might see that.”
Distribution of costs
In a similar way, the government can help people with lower incomes to become more sustainable. “You have to calculate it for them, very concretely. If someone lives in a social rental home, the housing corporation will invest this amount, so that you save that amount every month. Then the residents will see that the energy transition also works for them.”
Although Jetten believes that there should be ‘climate justice’ and that lower incomes should not lose out, the government has not yet responded to a report by the Scientific Council for Government Policy on this subject. These advisers plainly state that if the climate costs are not distributed equitably, support for climate policy will be undermined. Those costs and their distribution should be made explicit in the proposals.
More expensive gasoline
Jetten has not (yet) followed that advice. Take the petrol at the pump, which will soon go up ‘by a few cents’. It is unclear how much and what that means for the lowest incomes with a petrol car.
Pieter Winsemius does not want to be a know-it-all, but fears the worst when the nitrogen policy is also finalized. “The same people have been sitting around the table there for years as they shape climate policy. They go around in the same circle, nothing new is ever put on the table. There, too, the big pot of money will probably be grabbed. Without a clear vision. So watch out. An American slogan reads: If you don’t know where you are going, you end up somewhere else.”
Read also:
The cabinet has finally decided: 28 billion and 120 measures for the climate
With a mix of subsidies, higher taxes and price increases, the government wants to show ambition to still achieve its own climate goals.
The cabinet is picking up once more, thanks to the climate
Prime Minister Rutte and his politically divided team have made a few major decisions regarding climate and the hole in the treasury. The cabinet is scrambling once more.
1683564698
#Tips #Pieter #Winsemius #Jan #Terlouw #Rob #Jetten #tempted #measures #dont
