Dutch government will miss climate targets even with new plans: Planning office

Even with its newly announced climate plans, the Dutch Cabinet will not achieve the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 55 percent by 2030. The Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL) has calculated that with its additional plans, emissions will be reduced by between 41 and 52 percent compared to 1990 levels.

In actuality, the Cabinet is aiming for a reduction of 60 percent, so that the target of 55 percent will be achieved with certainty.

It is currently an "unlikely scenario" that the reduction in emissions will even be close to 50 percent, the PBL wrote. For this, the circumstances must be optimal, when it is important that the government take swift action to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Moreover, there are many uncertainties, for example economic growth, the weather and technological developments. It is also questionable to what extent the government can influence households and companies to become more sustainable.

The figures are slightly better than the PBL announced in connection with Prinsjesdag, when the Cabinet revealed its budget plans for the upcoming year. This is because the annual Climate and Energy Outlook (KEV) also included upcoming policies that have not yet been fully developed.

The planning office did not include measures where researchers can not yet gauge impact, which the PBL said was an important piece to the Cabinet's plans. According to previous estimates, these could still lead to additional reductions in emissions, but "the climate target will not be achieved with sufficient certainty in this instance either." The PBL emphasized that faster implementation and more policy are needed in order to still achieve the climate goal. Moreover, according to the planning office, more energy savings are needed.

Thus far, the situation is developing slowly. In the previous report in 2021, the expectation was that emissions would fall by 38 to 48 percent in 2030 compared to 1990 when considering concrete policies only. An important part of the progress is due to the unprecedented high energy prices. Due to the high prices, and the beautiful springtime weather, emissions were 9 megatonnes lower than in 2021.

"Energy prices will probably be lower after 2025 than last summer, but they are expected to remain significantly higher than was assumed in the past."