Despite economic setbacks that threaten from the Brexit and United States president Donald Trump's trade wars, this is a logical time to give "something back" to the Dutch, Prime Minister Mark Rutte said about the budget and the government's plans for next year, NU.nl reports.
Climate change
Sep 19 '18 09:34
Aug 28 '18 16:30
Activists blocked access to NAM's Tankenpark in Farmsum, Groningen on Tuesday morning in a protest against gas extraction in the province. According to action group Code Rood, more than 700 people gathered at the gates. The group wants to block the entrance for several days, ANP reports.
Aug 10 '18 15:10
If the Netherlands' average temperature rises by 3 degrees due to global warming, the country will be too hot for nearly 500 plant species, according to research Wageningen University published on Thursday. That is around 40 percent of all plant species in the country, ANP reports.
Plants that will disappear with 3 degree temperature increase include the wild strawberry, the Gentiana cruciata, the Linnaea borealis and the Cornus suecica, according to the researchers.
Jun 22 '18 11:30
Every year the Netherlands incurs 31 billion euros worth of damage to the environment through the emission of harmful substances, according a study by the Netherlands' environmental assessment agency PBL. That amounts to 4.5 percent of the country's gross domestic product, NU.nl reports.
Jun 19 '18 12:10
The negotiations for a new climate law for the Netherlands are almost done. The negotiators for the seven parties involved in drafting this bill have agreed on the text for the law and will present it to their factions on on Tuesday. The negotiators agreed that the law must stipulate that CO2 emissions in the country must be reduced by 49 percent in 2030 when compared to 1990, and by 95 percent in 2050, NOS reports.
Jun 14 '18 12:30
From Monday it is forbidden to extract water from streams and rivers in Noord- and Midden-Limburg to irrigate fields and pastures. The Limburg water board made this decision because of drought in the area, NOS reports.
Zuid-Limburg got a lot of rain and flooding over the past weeks, and the ban does not apply there. But in the north and middle of the province the water level dropped considerably due to a period of heat and drought, according to the water board.
May 23 '18 12:00
Nearly all shareholders of Shell voted against a resolution by action group Follow This on Tuesday. The resolution called on Shell to impose stricter environmental targets. Almost 95 percent of the cast votes were against the resolution, ANP reports.
Apr 16 '18 11:20
Shell "should have been more assertive" in its warnings about climate change, Ben van Beurden, CEO of the Dutch oil and gas giant said in a podcast by Studio Energie. Environmental group Milieudefensie recently filed a lawsuit against Shell for the role it played in the climate problems the world currently faces.
Apr 4 '18 14:30
Environmental organization Milieudefensie is filing a lawsuit against Shell in an effort to force the Dutch oil and gas company to adjust its policy to prevent further damage to the climate, Milieudefensie announced in a press conference at Shell's former headquarters in Amsterdam, ANP reports.
Mar 23 '18 13:00
The Dutch government gave Diederik Samsom the job of making sure that a quarter of Dutch homes are off the natural gas network by 2030, the former PvdA leader said in an interview with newspaper Trouw on Friday. That equates to around 2 million Dutch homes.
Samsom will work as an advisor and commissioner at state energy company EBN, and also as negotiator for the Dutch Climate Agreement. VVD Minister Erik Wiebes of Economic Affairs and Climate asked Samsom to be the negotiator last month, he said.
Mar 5 '18 14:40
Dutch municipalities can do much more to reduce the emission of green house gases in the Netherlands, according to a study by GroenLinks' scientific office. Party leader Jesse Klaver is therefore focusing on the 'green campaign' in the run up to the municipal elections, because he believes municipalities can make a big difference in the fight against climate change, NOS reports.
The municipalities have influence on more than a third of the country's total emissions, and not all municipalities are doing everything they can to reduce emissions, GroenLinks concludes.
Feb 2 '18 08:00
Today is Warm Sweater Day in the Netherlands, a day on which environmental organization Klimaatverbond calls on people to turn down the heating and instead wear a warm sweater to stay warm. With this campaign, the organization wants to draw attention to energy saving as a contribution to fighting climate change.
Small actions done by many people can have a major effect, a spokesperson for Klimaatverbond said to RTL Nieuws. "Because if everyone puts the heating one degree lower for one day, that saves the energy of the annual use of three Wadden Islands."
Jan 25 '18 07:31
The Dutch government wants to start building new houses without a connection to the gas network starting this year.
The Tweede Kamer, the lower house of Dutch parliament, already agreed that new homes should not be connected to the gas network. But the government thinks that this can be started sooner than the four years planned. On Thursday the coalition wants to arrange that average new homes are built without this connection, RTL Nieuws reports.
Dec 30 '17 12:23
Periodic rain showers could dampen New Year's celebrations on Sunday night and Monday morning, according to several weather forecasts for the Netherlands. Southern border provinces can expect high temperatures of 13 degrees, while the rest of the country could peak at 12 degrees, the Dutch national weather service KNMI stated. This could break the New Year's Day warm weather record of 12.3 degrees set in 2006.
Dec 11 '17 16:40
Prime Minister Mark Rutte is participating in the One Planet Summit in Paris on Tuesday. This informal climate summit marks the two year anniversary of the Paris Climate Agreement.
This informal summit was arranged by French president Emmanuel Macron. Its aim is to look at how far countries have come to meeting their climate goals set in the agreement, and to motivate them to achieve these goals.
Oct 31 '17 13:00
The Netherlands is falling behind internationally in breaking the link between CO2 emissions and economic growth, according to advisory office PwC in its Low Carbon Economy Index 2017, ANP reports.
For this index, the researchers looked at how much carbon dioxide a country emits to make a million dollars. In the Netherlands the so-called CO2 intensity increased by 0.1 percent. While the carbon intensity for the G20 countries - the world's 20 biggest economies - decreased by 2.6 percent on average.
Oct 31 '17 12:20
With the new Dutch government's plans, the Netherlands can reach about half of the climate goals set in the Paris climate agreement, according to an analysis by living environment planning office PBL. In order to achieve all the goals in the Paris Agreement, which is aimed at limiting global warming to less than 2 degrees, the government must make additional agreements with the Dutch industry, the PBL says, ANP reports.
Oct 11 '17 15:50
The new Dutch government presented a very ambitious energy policy in its government agreement on Tuesday. By 2030 the Rutte III cabinet wants the Netherlands' greenhouse gas emissions to be 49 percent lower than the level it was in 1990, a higher goal than what European rules currently demand. The governments is also planning to advocate for a 55 percent reduction in emissions in Europe.
Sep 21 '17 09:37
The United Nations Global Center of Excellence on Climate Adaption (GCECA) that is opening in the Netherlands, will be based in Rotterdam and Groningen, State Secretary Sharon Dijksma of Infrastructure and Environment announced. The two cities' joint application had the most convincing plan, she said, according to NOS.
Sep 15 '17 15:10
Increasingly severe storms due to climate change means increasing storm damage, and the damage counter is rising faster than expected, according to an analysis by the Dutch association of insurers. In the worst case scenario, storm damage will increase by over 260 million euros annually, compared to the current situation, the association calculates, RTL Nieuws reports.
Sep 15 '17 14:30
The new greenhouse gas policy implemented in 2005 to stimulate the Netherlands industry to reduce their emissions, had hardly any effect. Over the past 12 years, greenhouse gas emissions by Dutch manufacturers only decreased by 4 percent, the Volkskrant reports based on figures from the Dutch emissions authority NEa.
Sep 4 '17 12:10
In the first half of this year the Dutch government gave subsidies to a record number of over 4,500 renewable energy projects, the Ministry of Economic Affairs reported on Monday. The subsidies involved a total of over 5.8 billion euros, ANP reports.
Compared to the second half of last year, the number of renewable energy projects more than doubled. Then only 2,200 projects received support from the sustainable energy stimulation regulation SDE+. In the first half of last year, it was only 986 projects.
Aug 30 '17 13:30
Engineers in the American city of New Orleans are working with the Dutch government and Dutch researchers to come up with a way to make the Louisiana city more flood-resistant, Huffington Post reports. Twelve years after Hurricane Katrina basically destroyed the city, New Orleans is again facing flooding with Hurricane Harvey heading its way.
Jul 10 '17 09:08
Prime Minister Mark Rutte used the sidelines of the G20 summit in Hamburg this weekend to speak with Russian president Vladimir Putin about the MH17 disaster and the decision to prosecute the perpetrators in the Netherlands under Dutch law, NOS reports.
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