Does Jetten, like climate minister Habeck in Germany, also receive support from the green corner?
No. Environmental organizations reacted mainly with disapproval. ‘Drink a beer to wash the hangover away’, said Peer de Rijk of Milieudefensie. From a political point of view, as a D66 member, Jetten also has a different position than Habeck, who is in the cabinet on behalf of a green party. GroenLinks MP Suzanne Kröger therefore mainly criticized ‘the fossil reflex’ of the cabinet. She recalled the request that she made to Jetten in March to come up with a large-scale plan to save as much energy as possible.
Still, Jetten seems to have looked closely at Habeck in the defense of his plan. He was reminded by many mediums on Monday that, as a ‘climate pusher’, he posed euphorically in campaign time next to a coal-fired power station that was being closed. In his answer to such questions, he invariably started with the phrase ‘here is a Minister for Climate and Energy, who is also responsible for the security of energy supply’. To then especially emphasize that we are now in an ‘exceptional situation’ ‘and then you sometimes have to take measures that you would normally never have taken’.
At the same time, Jetten also said that he wants to do everything he can to achieve the cabinet’s climate target despite the coal-fired power stations.
Can that work?
That could well be the case for this year. the CO2emissions have been quite low in the first months of the year anyway. Due to the lockdown, the mild winter and spring and the high gas prices, considerably less gas has been burned by households and companies. This year, more green energy will be generated than last year, due to the growing number of wind turbines and solar panels. As a result, in total there is already more CO . this year2emissions than is now estimated to be added by scaling up the coal-fired power stations.
In the coming months, Jetten wants to stimulate further savings. Among other things, by calling on companies and citizens to be frugal. Citizens can start taking shorter or cold showers in the summer months and invest now in insulation so that they will have to heat their homes less in the winter. In the coming months, companies should, among other things, arrange that the climate control in their buildings does not use unnecessary energy.
In addition, Jetten will launch a tender for companies and industries that want to scale down their high gas consumption for a fee. For that tender, he wants to use the money he saves by scrapping the coal ceiling. There was still about 1.5 billion euros to compensate coal-fired power stations for the forced downscaling.
Does Jetten also receive criticism from the non-green corner?
Secure. Many energy experts believe that Jetten took this measure much too late. If he had done this at the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, about 2 percent of the annual gas consumption would have been saved by now, they calculated. Moreover, the critics argue that Jetten’s measures are guided too much by a national view of the gas crisis. ‘Europe wants to get rid of Russian gas and instead buys LNG (liquefied natural gas, red.) that would otherwise go to Asia’, explains independent energy expert Jilles van den Beukel. ‘Instead of LNG, those Asian countries are now going to burn more coal. And they do this in power stations that are usually much less efficient than the power stations that are here. It is therefore better for the climate in the world to switch on the coal-fired power stations here.’
‘Jetten is still a big climate pusher’, says Jos Cozijnsen, expert on the emissions trading system ETS. Cozijnsen has always thought it unwise that the Netherlands bought off the relatively clean Dutch coal-fired power stations to go out. ‘This means that the Netherlands is going further than the European approach to climate change.’ Now that the coal stop criticized by Cozijnsen has been bought off, he believes that Jetten should return the 1.5 billion euros to the Dutch taxpayer. ‘If you now give that to companies that use less gas, you are indirectly subsidizing that more emission rights remain within Europe for, for example, German coal-fired power stations.’
But in the long run, the Netherlands still wants to get rid of coal, right?
Yes, from 2030 onwards, in principle, no more coal will be burned to generate electricity in the Netherlands. This was decided in 2019 with the Prohibition of Coal in Electricity Production Act. However, the operators of the three remaining power stations do not give in easily, it turned out on Tuesday during a court session in The Hague. RWE is claiming 1.4 billion euros in damages for the closure of the power station in the Eemshaven, Uniper did not mention an amount, but their claim is estimated at around 1 billion for the power station on the Rotterdam Maasvlakte. Riverstone, the American speculator who bought the Onyx power station on the Maasvlakte and initially promised to close it earlier, is expected to benefit from the court ruling on justified compensation.