Climate goal with current policy did not achieve: ‘hardly anymore looking ahead’

This article was last updated on September 16, 2025

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Climate goal with current policy did not achieve: ‘hardly anymore looking ahead’

With less than a five percent chance, it is “very unlikely” that the Netherlands achieves its climate goals for 2030. Last year the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL) already made the same estimate. The situation was not improved a year later, but the PBL has no heavier qualification for that than “very unlikely”.

The Netherlands recorded in the Climate Act that in 2030 it must emit at least 55 percent less CO2 than in 1990. Every year the PBL takes all measures that lead to extra or less CO2 list, to see if the Netherlands is still on track.

Since 1990 the emissions of the Netherlands have fallen by 36 percent, but that decrease is not going fast enough. The PBL even finds that the government policy has hardly ensured that the emissions are falling faster in the past year. The fact that there was a decrease was mainly due to other causes, for example because the chemical industry produced less.

Last weekend, the NOS already noted that various measures are last year deleted or relaxed. There are a number of plans, but the effects of this are limited now.

“In fact, stagnation means decline,” writes the Council of State, an important adviser to the government, in a response. “With these choices, the cabinet seems to move more in time.”

Overestimation of the ministry

Outgoing Minister Hermans of Climate and Green Growth (KGG) promised to look for plans in the following months to save those extra megatons CO2 and thus ‘probably’ achieve the goals again. This turned out to be difficult in the Spring Memorandum: the minister stood for large dilemmas. Eventually her plans were pulled off from the Spring Memorandum, and arrived those weeks later.

According to her ministry, Hermans’ plans would lead to around 10 megaton of extra CO2 saving: not enough, but a step in the direction. Now it turns out to be a significant overestimation. With the minister’s measures, the PBL amounts to 4 megaton CO2 savings.

In addition, the calculations of the Planning Bureau are based on policy until 1 May this year. Two important changes from June are therefore not included, while they push the emissions. For example, the CO2 tax is for industry deleted, which meant that companies had to pay for the CO2 they emit. Also closing Custom agreements Between large companies and the government, mostly definitively failed. The idea was that thirty polluting companies would receive subsidies in exchange for far -reaching sustainability.

‘Horizon nearby’

With four years to go, the Netherlands will probably no longer be able to adjust the results, the Plustbureau concludes. To make policy, political stability and time are needed, and both are missing. “In the meantime, the horizon is so close that looking ahead is hardly anymore,” writes PBL. If the government really wants to achieve the goal, then that is almost impossible without economic pain and social resistance, according to the Planning Bureau.

This report is only about the effects until 2030. Before afterwards, there is no legal purpose at national level. At the European level that is: in 2050 there will be no extra CO2 more income.

It is precisely those intervening years that are difficult, the PBL predicts. Where we have had 35 years to collect 55 percent of emissions, there are another 25 years for the last 45 percent. While the start is the easiest, because then the most profit can be achieved with the least radical measures.

‘Preventing bottlenecks’

In the meantime, among other things, it appears that wind at sea is doing less well than expected that companies get out of climate agreements, that a large sustainable subsidy pot is under pressure and that many other climate policy has been deleted or relaxed.

In a response, outgoing Minister Hermans says nothing about not getting the goals, but chooses “to fully focus on solving the bottlenecks to prevent the energy transition from coming to a halt.”

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