Dutch greenhouse gas emissions cut by 7.9% last year over high gas prices

Last year, greenhouse gas emissions in the Netherlands were 7.9 percent lower than in 2021, mainly due to the high gas prices resulting in lower consumption, the RIVM reported on Friday. Due to the decrease, greenhouse gas emissions were 30 percent lower in 2022 than in 1990, achieving the climate target the court set for the Netherlands in a lawsuit filed by climate organization Urgenda.

According to the RIVM, the decrease in emissions last year was largely due to high natural gas prices in the energy crisis sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February last year. As a result, the industry, agriculture, and consumers used less natural gas, causing fewer emissions. The milder winter also played a role in this.

Ammonia emissions decreased by 1.1 percent, continuing its slightly declining trend. The RIVM attributed that mainly to fewer animals in pig and poultry farming and lower nitrogen levels in dairy cattle feed. Nitrogen oxide emissions fell by 2.4 percent as a result of lower natural gas use and a more modern fleet on the roads. And better data on consumers' use of hand disinfectants resulted in a 10.6 percent decrease in non-methane volatile organic compound emissions in 2022.

“Emissions of other air pollutants remained approximately constant in 2022,” said the RIVM, the Netherlands’ Institute for Public Health and the Environment.

With greenhouse gas emissions being 30 percent lower last year in 2022 than in 1990, the Netherlands complied with the court ruling in the Urgenda climate case. The court ruled that from 2020, greenhouse gas emissions must be at least 25 percent lower than in 1990 every year. After several government appeals, the Supreme Court confirmed that ruling in 2019.

The Netherlands achieved the target in 2020, though Urgenda mainly attributed that to the pandemic bringing industry and travel to a standstill. The target was narrowly missed in 2021. It also puts the Netherlands more than halfway toward its stated goal of reducing emissions by 55 percent by 2030, though that deadline may be abandoned as the result of the collapse of the fourth Cabinet of Prime Minister Mark Rutte.

The RIVM stressed that these emission figures were provisional. It will publish definitive figures for 2022 in early 2024.