Climate obstruction in the Netherlands:Strategic and systemic obstruction of Dutch climate policies (1980- present)

By the 1980s, Dutch politicians had begun to acknowledge the climate change problem and took the international lead in political agenda-setting. Yet, the Netherlands cannot be seen as a climate hero. When the government has acted, it has favoured ‘positive’ measures appreciated by industry, such as creating subsidies for more ‘sustainable’ oil refineries through technofixes, retaining €30 billion in annual fossil subsidies, and seeking to speed the process for obtaining new drilling licenses for North Sea gas fields. This chapter provides evidence that high-emitting industries and state actors... Mehr ...