Dutch flag carrier airline KLM plans to send ticketed passengers a mobile payment request to offset their share of carbon-dioxide emissions. The airline said it will start the program as a test in 2020 using social media messaging platform WhatsApp to distribute the requests.
All money collected will be invested in a Panamanian reforestation project, the airline said.
The Dutch government has formulated ambitious sustainability goals, like reducing CO2 emissions by 49 percent by 2030 and achieving a fully circular economy by 2050, but there is no coherent vision on what a sustainable society will look like and how to get to such a society, the Council for the Environment and Infrastructure said in its advisory report titled "Toward
Dutch European Commissioner Frans Timmermans is pushing to make Europe the first climate-neutral continent, and to achieve this by 2050, according to a 'Green Deal' he and European Commission chairman Ursula von der Leyen will present on Wednesday. The package of measures will overhaul the entire European legislation, the Volkskrant reported on Tuesday.
Almost 40 percent of passengers who fly through Schiphol do not fly further than 750 kilometers, Greenpeace reports based on research by consultancy and engineering firm Royal HaskoningDHV. According to Greenpeace, 750 kilometers is in many cases a distance that can easily be traveled by train or electric bus, saving a lot of CO2 emissions during these short flights' taxiing, takeoffs and landings.
Last year road traffic accounted for 17 percent of the total amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted in the Netherlands, according to Statistics Netherlands. The total CO2 emissions from road traffic was 2 percent higher in 2018 than in 2017 and 28 percent higher than in 1990.
Passenger cars accounted for 62 percent of the CO2 emissions in road traffic. Heavy goods vehicles and buses accounted for 20 percent.
Roughly 1.5 million households will likely find it difficult to pay their energy bills in 2030, a worrisome increase compared to today, when over 650 thousand Netherlands households have a tough time handling the price of electricity and gas. The research, from agency Ecorys and reported on by Trouw, defined households as being energy impoverished if they spend at least ten percent of household income on payments to energy providers.
Bol.com is investing in sustainability. On Wednesday the largest online store in the Netherlands launched a separate page for only sustainable items. And Bol.com aims to reduce the CO2 emissions to zero within five years, general manager Huub Vermeulen said to AD.
Any money left over in the government's budget should first be spent on raising the salaries of people in the public sector, addressing the housing shortage and getting more police officers on the street, according to a poll conducted by Ipsos on behalf of NOS for Budget Day 2019. Only once all that is done, should budget surpluses be used to pay off State debt, the respondents said.
Greenpeace is planning a protest against pollution caused by the aviation sector. And for the first time ever, the environmental organization is asking the public to help choose what type of protest must be held at either Schiphol, Lelystad airport, or everywhere in the country.
Budget airline Transavia weighed the passengers of five flights from Eindhoven Airport on Friday in an experiment to improve its fuel calculations and reduce its CO2 emissions, Eindhoven Airport said on Twitter.
"Through a more precise determination of the weight on board, the fuel calculation can be performed even more accurately, with the goal of less CO2 emissions", the airport said. Participation in the experiment is voluntary.
Implementing a new road tax that will charge motorists for each kilometer they drive is one of the suggestions the 24 members of the Mobility Alliance made in their Delta Plan Mobility. The 70-page long document contains multiple proposals that should ensure that traffic in the Netherlands can keep moving in the coming years. Other proposals involve constructing more bicycle paths and and so-called transport hubs, NOS reports.
The Netherlands could still achieve the emission reduction goals set in the so-called Urgenda ruling, if it closes three almost new coal-fired power stations at the start of next year, research agency CE Delft concluded in a study done at the request of Natuur & Milieu, Greenpeace and the Lung Fund. Closing the coal plants will also not be very expensive, costing 760 million euros, the Volkskrant reports.
From next week Wednesday, Shell will offer customers in the Netherlands the option to pay one cent extra per liter of fuel. The Dutch oil and gas giant will then use that extra money to compensate for CO2 emissions. "This offers customers in the Netherlands an interim solution as long as electric driving is not yet affordable for everyone", Marjan van Loon, director of Shell Nederland, said to NOS.
The agreements made in the climate agreement will likely not achieve the Netherlands' goal of reducing its CO2 emissions by 48.7 megatons in 2030 compared to 1990. The Industry in particular is not providing enough CO2 reductions, were the main conclusions of the Netherlands' environmental assessment agency PBL and the Netherlands' central planning office CPB's calculations of the agreement, NU.nl reports.
The business community will pay their "fair" share in the implementation of the climate agreement, Prime Minister Mark Rutte said during question hour in parliament. The Prime Minister was called to parliament by GroenLinks leader Jesse Klaver. He believes that in the negotiations on the climate agreement the government, like with the scrapping of dividend tax, listened too much to the business community, NOS reports.
Dutch consumers can expect a considerable increase in their energy bills as of January 1st. Gas and electricity became more expensive and the energy companies will start to process this into their prices. Energy tax is also increasing sharply, RTL Nieuws reports.
By the end of this government's term in 2021, the energy bill for Dutch households will be on average 175 euros more expensive than this year, Minister Eric Wiebes of Economic Affairs and Climate said in a parliamentary debate on Thursday. Next year, households can expect an average energy bill increase of 45 euros, NU.nl reports.
Wiebes emphasized that this is an estimate, but if there is no change in policy, households can take these increases into account.
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.
From September 1st homeowners in Amsterdam can apply for a subsidy to remove their home from the gas connection. The Dutch capital aims to be gas-free by 2050 in order to drastically reduce CO2 emissions in the city. That means that 350 thousand homes must move from natural gas to sustainable heating and electric cooking, Het Parool reports.
The Port of Rotterdam is taking its first steps in going green. On Thursday Allard Castelein, CEO of the Port, is meeting with almost everyone involved in the port on the ss Rotterdam to present two ambitious options for the port's energy transition, NRC reports.
The best way to deal with Dutch coal-fire power plants is not closing them, but making them more sustainable, according to a yet to be published study by Frontier Economics, which the Financieele Dagblad got its hands on.
According to the study, the CO2 emissions from the coal plants can be stored in old gas fields. And biomass can be burned in the plants. That solution is relatively cheap and saves a lot on greenhouse gasses.
Dutch banks still generally fall seriously short when it comes to climate policy and that sets the organizations behind, according to a new report published by the Fair Bank Guide on Wednesday, ANP reports.
Only SNS, ASN and Triodos scored well on their climate policy. Aegon, ING, ABN Amro, Rabobank, Delta Lloyd and Van Lanschot all scored an insufficient. According to the researchers, most Dutch banks don't require oil companies to prevent drilling in the fragile Arctic. They also don't publish measurable CO2 reduction targets for the companies in which the invest.
The government wants the Netherlands to be nearly CO2 emissions free by 2050, according to Economic Minister Henk Kamp's Energy Agenda. The Agenda contains a number of measures to reduce dependency on fossil fuels and encourage sustainable living. Environmental organizations call the plan unambitious, NU.nl reports.
A group of 40 large Ducth companies called on the next Dutch government to to lay long-term goals of the Climate Agreement down in law. This is the only way to curb global warming, the companies wrote in a letter in the Volkskrant on Wednesday.
