The Netherlands “extremely unlikely” to meet environment targets

The Netherlands still only has a 5% chance of achieving its 2030 climate targets, the government’s environmental assessment agency PBL said on Tuesday.
This means it is “extremely unlikely” the targets will be reached, the agency said, repeating the warning it gave a year ago.
The Netherlands aims to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 55% in 2030 when compared with 1990. Based on current performance and strategy, the reduction will be between 45% and 53%, according to PBL calculations.
Emissions have gone down 36% since 1990 but the decline has come to a halt. And the current government’s strategy over the past year has had barely any impact on this, the PBL said.
The slight decline that has been registered, the agency said, has other causes, such a downturn in production by the chemicals industry.
Last year the agency said that Netherlands needed to make an “enormous effort” to reach its targets and “now we have a year less and need to put together a new government,” director Marko Hekkert told news website Nu.nl.
Instead, reaching the targets is going to require measures that “will cause serious economic pain or lead to civil resistance,” the agency warned.
The Netherlands is also not on track to meet binding EU targets for renewable energy and energy consumption either but will meet the European ESR emission target (48% fewer emissions in 2030 compared to 2005) for the building, transport, and agriculture sectors.
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