In a bad mood, Hans Mommaas sometimes says: “We stumble into the future.” Look at the ‘major renovation of the Netherlands’ as the cabinet calls it, says Mommaas (67), departing director of the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL). It concerns an ambitious redevelopment for a climate-neutral and liveable country in 2050. But both the basis and the final goal are still missing, according to Mommaas.
“You first have to invest in energy networks and transport routes, such as the port of Rotterdam. To be able to supply enough sustainable electricity and hydrogen, to keep the economy going and to make it future-proof. In fact, that is the foundation of the major renovation of the Netherlands.”
There is also no coherent picture of what the Netherlands should look like after that major renovation, according to Mommaas. “We have a housing target, a climate target, a nitrogen target, a nature target, a water target. But those goals are intertwined and must come together. We really need to visualize: how do we want to design the landscape?”
After a term of office of seven years, Mommaas is leaving the PBL; he will be succeeded by Marko Hekkert, professor of innovation sciences at Utrecht University. Together with the Central Planning Bureau and the Social and Cultural Planning Bureau, the PBL forms the three independent institutes for strategic policy analysis. The PBL conducts solicited and unsolicited research into the environment, nature and space.
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The living environment is now spread over five ministers and two state secretaries. Do you have any organizational advice for the cabinet?
“There is a good intention to work together, certainly it is already happening officially. The point is: does that intention remain intact if a minister goes to the House of Representatives to defend his own portfolio? The House should also really make spatial quality a point of attention at the start of decision-making.”
Do you think the House of Representatives pays too little attention to the layout of the Netherlands?
“Yes, in the political debate there is an enormous amount of attention for the issues, but too little for the cohesion. The House should ask itself much more often: does this fit into the landscape, what does this mean for the city and countryside, for the watercourse?”
Can you give an example?
“Nitrogen. The government has set firm targets: by 2030, nitrogen must be reduced to harmless levels in 74 percent of the vulnerable nature areas. If you translate that rigidly, in some areas there is simply no more room for agriculture. The question is: what will the landscape look like and who will maintain it?”
Where is there no more room for agriculture?
“Among others in the edges of the Veluwe and in the Peel. If you really want to reduce the nitrogen precipitation there, everything has to be removed. And then you’re not there yet, because a lot of nitrogen is blown over from abroad. Holding on to those objectives too unilaterally has perverse consequences.”
Your PBL is there for the environment, nature and space. The Netherlands is in poor shape on all three points. You tell me: where did it go wrong?
“We got off to a very slow start. We have exploited the living environment economically for decades, and we knew that too. There has been a turning point since 2015, of course, that has to do with my appointment at the PBL that year… No, just kidding. That started with the Paris Climate Agreement, which has been translated into the Climate Agreement in the Netherlands in 2019.”
The question is whether we will achieve those climate goals.
“Yes, when calculating the coalition agreement of the Rutte IV cabinet, we also said: ‘it borders on the realizable’. By 2030 we want 55 percent less CO2 emissions than in 1990. With the heels on the ditch, we succeeded in achieving 25 percent less in 2020. So it took us thirty years to do that. And now we have to get 30 percent or more in eight years. If we had gone a lot further, for example with large offshore wind farms, we would now have been able to respond more calmly to the energy crisis caused by the war in Ukraine. We are now running back to fossil fuels to secure energy.”
The PBL has been signaling in vain for years that things are not going well in many areas. What does that say about the PBL itself?
“That we signal early.”
That is very euphemistically worded. There are 250 smart people here who warn in thick reports. And then often nothing happens for years. Isn’t that frustrating?
“Nothing human is alien to scientists. They also get impatient. But the decision is up to the politicians. Nor is the PBL there for the living environment itself. We are primarily there for the quality of decision-making about that living environment.”
This month, the PBL released a critical report about buying out farmers to tackle nitrogen. That hasn’t worked for 25 years. But what does the government do after that? Betting on buyouts. What do you think?
“That’s the political reality.”
That the PBL is not heard.
“We are heard, but we do not live in a technocracy with a one-to-one relationship between knowledge and policy. It is a political-social discussion. Does your policy use coercion, or do you bet on people willing to cooperate? I get it too. The nitrogen approach affects farmers who are sometimes generations in their region. Now they are suddenly told: guys, stop it.”
How is this going to end? The cabinet has reserved 7.4 billion euros to buy out farmers. We already know that this is not going to work.
“I’m curious. At some point we find out that we are not going to make it. I think that an adjustment must then be made in the policy, which must nevertheless be expropriated on the basis of nature permits or spatial planning.”
Have you ever slammed your fist on the table at a minister or top official? Is there anything else going on?
“No, I always assume that these are very intelligent people who can read, write and also listen. They know what it is about.”
Or have you calculated: we have to conclude something over and over for years before it leads to action.
“That’s right. Be permanently present, let it drip quietly. At some point the penny will drop, if the circumstances are there.”
Isn’t the conclusion: we only start moving when the water is literally on our lips, when people have no houses, when the highest judge says: what with that nitrogen?
“Well, looking at all the files, you get the impression that we always need an impulse from outside to actually get to work.”
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Politicians are encouraged to take action from society. And the PBL reports are often very technical. Would it help if they were more accessible?
“It would be a shame if that was the final conclusion. In recent years, we have done our very best to make those reports more accessible and to give more context to the figures. I believe that society has a right to a certain traceability of our reports.”
When you started here in 2015, you wanted to ‘socialize’ knowledge. Now it’s 2022 and some angry citizens rely more on disinformation than science. How do you experience that?
“As Planning Bureau we have really made a turn. In the past we were really only concerned with quantitative figures. Now we also evaluate government policy processes…”
What does that have to do with the mistrust of angry citizens?
“My point is that that angry citizen feels that he or she is not being heard. That’s what you get if you preprogram a ‘policy machine’ only on the final goals. But if you can adjust that machine along the way and correct errors, you can also listen better to citizens. That is why we are now evaluating policy.”
What do the PBL researchers notice about this anger in society? Has anyone ever been threatened?
“Yes, that sometimes happens. Although it remains with words. The living environment has become central to policy, with significant consequences for society. I can imagine that people want to know: what kind of club is that? We have therefore opened the windows further. We enter into discussions with our critics and sometimes invite such organisations. That can work very well, also for politics and administration. Take the nitrogen dossier, in which Johan Remkes mediated between the cabinet and farmers: we will have to listen to society more often, to see where there is room to move together.”
In fact, every department needs a Johan Remkes.
“If every department had a Johan Remkes, we wouldn’t need Johan Remkes.”