The Netherlands has climate policy high on its agenda. But industry in our country contributes little to it, according to extensive research by the Green Amsterdammers and CBS figures.
The opinion magazine found that while many industrial companies support climate policy, in the meantime they hardly change their operations to reduce harmful emissions. The journalists used the European Environment Agency (EEA) database, which lists emissions from all industrial plants in the EU. The magazine then selected plants on Dutch soil and these companies were then clustered by parent companies. Shell tops the list, emitting over six megatons in 2014. De Groene Amsterdammer outlines a comparison: 'this is roughly the same as 1.3 million passenger cars. To offset that amount, Shell would have to plant a forest the size of 11 times the Veluwe every year'.
In second place is Tata Steel and third place is taken by Chemelot.
More emissions
Figures from the EEA show that Dutch industry is still emitting as much as a decade ago. Companies participating in the European Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) have actually started to emit more over the past five years, says the Dutch Emissions Authority.
In the energy sector, the decline in emissions did start; coal-fired power plants were closed and wind farms and solar panels were added.
Many manufacturing companies do work on sustainability; they mainly do their best to apply existing technologies as efficiently as possible. Unfortunately, these 'easy' measures to take are not enough to really reduce CO2 emissions. Also, for many companies in the top 10, the demand from their customers only increases, cancelling out the environmental steps that have been taken.
A lot of influence
The Green Amsterdammer argues that this business strategy stands in the way of a successful environmental policy, precisely because a third of Europe's CO2 emissions come from industrial processes. The impact of industry on climate change is therefore very high. Dutch industry also did worse than those in the rest of Europe.
In the article, De Groene cites the failure of the European Emissions Trade Scheme (ETS), among others, as a reason why little progress has been made on climate policy in the Netherlands. This system means that companies covered by it must buy 'allowances' to emit greenhouse gases. The EU sets the annual maximum emissions and auctions allowances based on this. The aim is to keep greenhouse gas emissions in the EU zone below a certain limit and encourage renewable energy and cleaner processes. The idea is that fewer allowances will enter the market each year, which should increase their price. But the price appears to have been hovering around the same level for years. This is because national governments were allowed to give free allowances to companies that also operate internationally. As a result, the price for a tonne of CO2 still hovers between four and six euros. "That is too low to provoke the large-scale transition that is necessary," Green argues. The magazine offers a harsh conclusion: "It is a gamble to trust that the new technologies being developed by many companies will be sufficient to solve climate change in 30 years' time."
By: Kelly Bakker
Photo: Pixabay
