The new Dutch cabinet’s coalition agreement, due to be formally presented today, includes ‘ambitious’ environmental goals but does not allocate enough funds to ensure they are achieved, according to environmental organisations.

According to the Financieele Dagblad, the new government is expected to announce a 30% reduction (compared with 1990) in greenhouse gases by 2020 – which is higher than its Kyoto obligations (6% in 2010) and the EU target (20%).
It also calls for renewable energy to account for 20% of total production by 2020 and a doubling of the current target for energy saving to 2%.
But while environmental groups call these targets a breakthrough, they say not enough money has been made available for them to be achieved.
Details leaked from the coalition agreement specify that €500m has been set aside for stimulating renewable energy and an extra €150m for extra investment in nature and the environment for the coming four years.
Donald Pols of Milieudefensie points out in the FD that the Energy Research Centre recently concluded that 1.3 billion euros is needed for energy saving alone.