While the cabinet discussed the election defeat of the government parties in provinces and water boards in a “constructive atmosphere” on Tuesday evening, Minister Zuhal Demir, the Flemish counterpart of nitrogen minister Christianne van der Wal, sat bee News hour to explain how she had managed to conclude a nitrogen agreement with the farmers, with buy-out and tackling ‘peak taxers’. According to her, politicians had looked away for far too long. “At a certain point,” said Demir, “even if it’s not fun, you have to bite the bullet.”
In The Hague, the Council of Ministers continued meeting under high tension on Friday – and ultimately decided to wait with a new nitrogen policy for the time being until new provincial governments have been formed.
Read also: Coalition saved for the time being by postponing sensitive nitrogen decisions
While Brussels is precisely in a letter, which was sub-optimally timed for the cabinet had once again spoken out against further procrastination.
The Flemish ‘crocus agreement’ actually suggested peace. But is that true? Not only does it contain chord potentially resolutive conditionsDemir also has to deal with a replica of the BBB, called BoerBurgerBelangen, which can undermine the Flemish Christian Democrats, traditional defenders of farmers’ interests.
For example, part of Flanders, just like in the Netherlands, closes its eyes or even wants to turn back the clock. Nitrogen: does not exist. Or: not important. Or: something for later. Reduction in 2030 or 2035, what difference does it make?
It is not surprising that the nitrogen crisis first broke out in the densely populated Netherlands. The yield per square meter is greater than anywhere else, and as the largest agricultural exporter, the Netherlands only tolerates the US.
“Countries usually make a choice between either many farms or many people,” wrote The Economists last week. “The Dutch approach was: have their Gouda and eat it. That has landed both farmers and politicians in a mountain of natural manure.”
Think away
Although Germany, Denmark and thus Belgium are now engaged in similar discussions, and although Cyprus plows back relatively more manure, ‘nitrogen’ has always been regarded as a ‘typically Dutch problem’ in Europe.
But ‘thinking away’ a problem – that is not typically Dutch. See the protests in France over a higher retirement age from 62 to 64. The aging population makes the old system unaffordable, but the French find it unthinkable to adapt and so the flames hit the pan again. “Give us 64 and we will give you 68,” said one of the protest signs addressed to President Macron, referring to “1968,” the penultimate French revolution.
The French and Dutch anger have similar traits
The French and Dutch anger have common traits: a plan that affects an already distressed class, disregard by an administrative elite that has lost touch with ‘the people’, the gulf between city and ‘periphery’. Literally: feeling pushed to the margins.
You can also hear nostalgia in the anger. Dutch farmers pretend woke come to destroy their Arcadia (they themselves have turned it into a green desert). The French see themselves deprived of their troisieme agethe last part of their lives promised to them by François Mitterrand, which allowed them to retire at the age of sixty (but that was never really Zwitserleven).
‘Trial marriage’ with BBB
Macron must now dismantle the system that allowed him to rule as an enlightened monarch in favor of parliament [dat hij over pensioenen passeerde]”, wrote Luuk van Middelaar NRC. “That doesn’t work […] then in 2027 the throne will be ready for Princess Marine Le Pen.” The Hague can only show that “the message has been understood” and enter into a “trial marriage with BBB”, wrote Marc Chavannes bee The Correspondent.
Finding a way out that doesn’t just mean delay is inevitable. Because the reassuring future that some parties still like to promise their voters is no longer there.
For those who didn’t know yet: the party of the Holocene is over; welcome to the Anthropocene, in which man not only experiences his environment as a puny creature, but changes the planet himself.
By its numbers, to begin with. By clearing forests, mining, clearing the seas, diverting freshwater for dams and irrigation. And by radically changing the atmosphere, and continuing to do so despite nice words. So that the atmosphere is now radically changing the planet.
“Our” nitrogen, French pensions, and other “local” European headaches may already require the utmost for a solution, and yet they are only a foretaste of what is needed next: colossal measures to limit global warming.
Just last week, the UN climate panel IPCC outlined what this man-made reality will look like. Our greenhouse gas has already turned up the thermostat by more than a degree. Extreme weather ravages temperate zones, coastal cities flood, islands sink, animals and plants that cannot keep up with the changes become extinct. Spring has barely begun when forest fires are already raging in Spain and Italy.
Every tenth degree extra means more escalation, writes the IPCC. But there is already an immense gap between the global climate plans and what is really needed to keep warming below two degrees, let alone below one and a half degrees.
German car lobby
With such a draconian agenda, the nitrogen ration for 2030 is dwarfed. Still, the country knew about it That car to extend the life of the internal combustion engine beyond 2035. Although the climate is probably asking us to say goodbye to ‘individual mobility’ and embrace public transport.
Germany has put the European Green Deal further behind with its kamikaze action. But according to British climate scientist Kevin Anderson, all those greening are not doing enough anyway. He accuses the IPCC of being “too conservative”. The energy transition, and the scaling down of ‘fossil’, if it succeeds at all, still seems to be a privilege of the rich lucky few on earth. Thirty years of complacency means that technology alone cannot reduce emissions fast enough. he writes The Conversation, science journalism website. Only tempering consumption worldwide will help, he says. But is the West ready for that? Or “is the rapidly changing climate brutally and chaotically making that decision for us?”
Protests France Weekend 12-13
A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper of April 1, 2023