The Netherlands must continue to exist to its full extent, also in a hundred years’ time. It has not yet been fully thought through, but the cabinet seems to have made this choice. And it sees the Randstad as the permanent economic and demographic heart. Even after the expected rise in sea levels due to climate change.
With some good will, this common thread can be drawn from the fragments of vision and policy that the Rutte IV cabinet has been releasing in recent weeks. It often remains implicit, in parentheses on topics such as water policy, plans for housing and infrastructure, and the future of agriculture. But they do point in one direction.
Minister Mark Harbers of Infrastructure and Water Management (VVD) looked explicitly past 2100 when he told the House of Representatives that decisions would still have to be made this decade about questions such as whether or not to build a second coastline, an artificial buffer against the higher sea. After all, such large projects take “about eighty years”, he remembered from previous projects. The mindset is clear again: keep the west.
Apocalyptic scenario
It is a good direction – and it is not self-evident, given the climate change scenarios. All the more so as the government can be expected to also take the worst variants into account. According to the Scientific Council for Government Policy, this generally happens too little. And it makes quite a difference. According to the Sea Rise Knowledge Programme, the sea will rise by 30 centimeters by 2100, in an apocalyptic scenario it will rise by 10 meters in the year 2300.
What is desired and at what price? Many government plans for spatial development or the reorganization of the Netherlands do not go beyond the medium term.
During that period, for example, a lot of construction had to be done in the U-shape from Hoorn to Nijmegen, around the ‘national rain barrel’ of the IJsselmeer and the Markermeer. Starting in the next ten years with 400,000 new homes in that region, plus 3.4 billion euros from a fund for economic growth. And investments in infrastructure, a large part of which is around Amsterdam.
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This would – hopefully – turn out differently if the government assumed that the Netherlands would have to start giving up the west to the sea. Then it would be time to start shifting the infrastructural center of gravity to the east – as Indonesia has already planned its capital elsewhere (because Jakarta is sinking into the sea). This cabinet does not start such grand designs. In Zeeland, Limburg and northeast of the Deventer-Zwolle line, relatively few infrastructural investments are planned.
More thoroughness lies in thinking about the West. For example, the cabinet wants to stop building in the lowest-lying polders in the western Netherlands, where the advancing sea is already causing more salinization of the surface and groundwater. A choice that received praise this week.
In any case, it is an example of the necessary national direction of spatial planning, which sometimes disrupts local plans. For example, in the Zuidplaspolder, where thousands of new homes are currently being planned in the lowest-lying area of the Netherlands.
In its plans, the cabinet also considers the space needed after 2050 to reinforce dykes, dunes and dams (enthusiasts take note: there are also ‘water-retaining structures’ such as locks and bridges). Fortunately, the south and east are participating: in the flood plains along the major rivers, building is (even) less allowed.
Post-fossil world
Such perspectives are necessary to set the framework for short-term dilemmas. Take agriculture, housing and traffic projects, for example, which are now stalled due to the inadequate nitrogen policy. Once there is a solution for this – and if new blockages due to lagging water quality are avoided before 2027 – it is very important that the right projects are given priority: the forward-looking ones. That costs less and limits the risks for residents, entrepreneurs and nature. Unfortunately, the government’s vision on the future of agriculture that has just been drawn up is still too vague.
The longer term also deserves a more explicit and open debate. The climate summit in Egypt showed once again that the pursuit of a post-fossil world must be accelerated considerably – and at the same time that even with unexpected success this will not be enough. The future of (also) the Netherlands will be determined by that other leg of climate policy: adapting to new living conditions. With more extreme weather, more severe river flooding, higher temperatures and less drinking water.
Dealing with water is the heart of Dutch democracy – the national survival strategy
The debate about this is intensifying among experts. See Deltares researcher Marjolijn Haasnoot’s recent plea to respond now to the major sea level rise in the future: the longer you wait, the smaller the number of options, she says. She thought a ‘sea level rise test’ for all current projects was a ‘nice idea’. There are also researchers who say: let the sea come.
And in the meantime, banks and other providers of mortgages and corporate loans are being advised to ‘price in’ climate risks more. And meanwhile, people are weighing climate risks into life decisions.
Such developments should also form part of the government’s considerations. It may be a consideration to build more railway lines in the northeast – above NAP. That’s wise. More needs to be done for the economic development of these areas.
This long-term debate needs to be more explicit. It can cause political shifts. For example, an alliance is conceivable between parties rooted in the east (CDA, ChristenUnie, perhaps after the provincial elections also BBB) and people in the west who prefer to approach climate change with the utmost caution and want to live and work higher up.
The views of civil servants at the many ministries involved must also be made public; there are too many experts there to withdraw their polyphony from the public domain.
There must be confidence that decisions will ultimately be taken in the political arena, by a majority in the House of Representatives and the Senate. Because dealing with water is the heart of Dutch democracy – the national survival strategy. For centuries.
A version of this article also appeared in the December 3, 2022 newspaper