Monday came Climate and energy selection guide Outside. In it, a working group of civil servants writes what the new government should do on climate. The most important conclusion: more climate policies are needed. This will cost tens of billions in the coming decades.

While the Party for Freedom, the biggest winner in the last election, calls for less climate policy. For example, the election manifesto states that “the climate law, the climate agreement, and all other climate measures would immediately be subject to shredding,” if it were up to it. But the selection guide states that in order to meet the current climate target of reducing emissions by 55%, additional policies are required.

“In concrete terms, this means that difficult choices are necessary in agriculture (…) and in mobility,” the officials wrote. “For the Netherlands to be climate neutral in 2050 according to European and national climate law, the Netherlands will have to take the biggest and most radical steps.”

News hour Noe van Hulst, Chairman of the official working group that prepared the selection guide, spoke. According to him, more efforts are needed in sectors that have achieved relatively little, such as agriculture and mobility. “In agriculture, for example, this means you have to look at reducing livestock numbers.”

According to van Hulst, this is probably inevitable. “Sooner or later you have to do something about it. We say: do it sooner rather than later, it’s much better. Otherwise, you will have to intervene more strongly later,” he added.

But if the new government is willing to do less on climate policy, then what happens? Van Hulst says it’s possible, but to a limited extent. “We are on the move in Europe, which is on its way to climate neutrality. So, you are at the lower end of what needs to be done from Europe. If the Netherlands goes below that, then you as a country are at risk.” Fines, notices of default, all sorts of things you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy.”

Van Hulst says you could take a calmer approach to climate policy, but “then you would be sitting at the back of the bus in Europe. And then you wouldn’t be able to participate in determining what happens.”

“Companies then give less perspective on where things will eventually turn. This leads to uncertainty, postponement of investments and, by definition, a deterioration of the investment climate in the Netherlands.” This would be bad news for the Dutch economy, among other things. Because companies don’t like a country that is in trouble with the European Union because of its bad climate policies, says Van Holst. “Then companies will move their investments to other, more positive countries.”

The climate-less policy, advocated by the Freedom Party, does not appear to be a realistic option given the UN climate agreement that the Netherlands signed in 2015. “For the Netherlands to be climate neutral in 2050 according to European and national climate law, the Netherlands will have to take the biggest and most important steps “radical.”

The formation of a right-wing government seems possible, but nothing is certain at the moment. Before the election, Newsur investigated what political parties had in place regarding climate plans: