New official calculations are a blow to the cabinet in a nitrogen crisis

A stack of nitrogen calculations by civil servants contains a new blow for the cabinet. With the current nitrogen rules, there is no conceivable scenario in which the granting of permits, for example to be allowed to rebuild or expand farms, can get going again. Not now, and not in the future.

Read also: Cabinet wants to significantly reduce nitrogen emissions from three thousand ‘peak loaders’

Even if the Rutte IV nitrogen package is implemented, for which more than 24 billion euros is available, and all targets to reduce emissions quickly are achieved, 96 percent of the Netherlands will turn red, the calculations show.

The nitrogen calculations are included in an appendix that was sent to the House of Representatives on Friday afternoon. The documents have been drawn up in recent months by officials of the Ministry of Finance, in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality (LNV).

The explanation for this damper is the inexorability of the applicable nitrogen rules. In order to issue a permit for new nitrogen emissions, there must not be a protected nature reserve within 25 kilometers that is in a bad state. This is measured by checking whether nature falls below the ‘critical deposition value’ (KDW), the limit value that determines whether a nature reserve is healthy.

Strip in very bad condition

Many nature reserves will improve in the coming years due to government plans, but almost everywhere there will be a strip of nature in a very poor condition within a radius of 25 kilometers where the KDW is exceeded. And so the map turns red.

There has been criticism of this critical deposition value for some time. During their protests, dissatisfied farmers insist on scrapping the deposition value altogether. Nitrogen mediator Johan Remkes said at the end of last year that the KDW is “not sacred”.

Since then, the cabinet has been investigating whether there is an alternative. But Prime Minister Mark Rutte (VVD) also said: an alternative must be “robust and legally tenable”.

Although the Ministry of LNV previously dismissed similar calculations as an official exercise that is in no way used to develop policy, Minister Kaag now writes that the notes “were made, among other things, to support the policy preparation of LNV’s peak loader approach.”

Reported last summer NRC on the basis of comparable calculations that the nitrogen policy could be organized more efficiently and differently. At the time, the Ministries of Agriculture and Finance were at odds with each other. Finance wanted farmers to be bought out in a very targeted manner, if necessary under duress. This is faster and costs less money. The Ministry of Agriculture, on the other hand, aimed for a voluntary, less targeted approach that meets with less resistance from farmers.

The new calculations show that, irrespective of the policy chosen, there is no conceivable scenario in which permits can be issued again on a large scale in the old manner. That is what the cabinet has always announced as the aim of the nitrogen measures, in addition to nature restoration. “The Netherlands must be unlocked,” Prime Minister Mark Rutte said in November, on the day the nitrogen plan was presented.

If the November nitrogen approach is implemented, numerous nature areas will become healthier. Nevertheless, there is hardly any room for new permits, because of the tufts of nature that are still not healthy.

Almost everywhere, within a radius of 25 kilometers, a strip of nature can be found in very poor condition

As a thought experiment, the officials have gone one step further. Even in a scenario in which the entire livestock sector disappears from the Netherlands, or at least no longer emits any emissions, more than 90 percent of the map remains red. This is mainly due to the nitrogen that blows in from abroad and from the sea – over which the Netherlands has no influence.

Since the nitrogen crisis, the government has often resorted to a life buoy in order to be able to grant permits: buying up nitrogen space from farmers and companies that are quitting, to use that space elsewhere. Based on the official memorandum, this remains the only way in which permits can be arranged for the time being.

But this approach also has its limitations. For example, the cabinet is stricter with regard to government projects: if such a project endangers the restoration of nature, it is not allowed. The officials write that there will only be some space available for those projects in the western and northern Netherlands.

Wider nitrogen package

Friday’s calculations are part of a larger nitrogen package, with which the cabinet wants to focus even more specifically on three thousand peak loaders. Voluntary at first, but coercion may follow from next year.

In addition, the cabinet made clear how much nitrogen the traffic sector (-25 percent) and industry (-38 percent) must use to reduce their emissions. The government is also preparing a bill to bring forward the nitrogen targets from 2035 to 2030.

The Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality (LNV) does not feel the need to comment on the calculations made by the Ministry of Finance, says an LNV spokesperson. There has been “official contact” about the calculations, he says, “but no close contact”. The Ministry of Finance could not be reached for comment Friday night.