Extinction Rebellion

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  Heleen Ekker

  editor Climate and Energy

The A12 will be occupied again tomorrow by climate activists from Extinction Rebellion. The aim of the action is to force an end to subsidies for fossil fuels. The Netherlands still spends billions of euros on direct or indirect government support for fossil energy. But the amounts vary enormously. And the discussion about it has been going on for at least twenty years.

The question of exactly how much the government spends on stimulating fossil energy sources is not easy to answer. According to Extinction Rebellion, this is more than 17 billion euros. But according to the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate, it is much less, although it is not clear how much exactly. The ministry holds an amount of 4.5 billion euros.

Minister Jetten of Climate: “But I have agreed with the State Secretary of Finance that we will have an extra analysis carried out this year to properly map out the fossil benefits in the Netherlands.”

The calculation used by Extinction Rebellion was made by the economist Alman Metten, former MEP for the PvdA. He thinks fossil subsidies are wrong. “Because you’re basically promoting pollution.”

When Metten made his calculation a few years ago, he came out four times higher than the government, namely at 17.3 billion euros per year. “The government arrived at 4.5 billion euros, plus a number of categories that they said they could not fill in. What I did was calculate what they were with public data, especially from Statistics Netherlands. So I was able to do that. And anyone can check that, because I have stated exactly how I got there.”

This not only concerns direct subsidies, but also tax benefits and price support. A large part goes to aviation, heavy industry, power stations and agriculture. And the more energy is consumed, says Metten, the less the companies have to pay. “It is of course an absurd situation that the more gas you consume and therefore pollute more, the less tax you have to pay.”

He calls the situation in the Netherlands unique, which is also why it has existed for so long. “I fear that the government is afraid of being put on the spot internationally. Because the Netherlands is really the top when it comes to subsidies to energy-intensive companies. And secondly: you can no longer do it these days. to justify.”

Reports about subsidies to fossil fuel companies are not new. Almost twenty years ago, the harmfulness of subsidies to the climate was demonstrated in a study by the Erasmus University, following a request from the House of Representatives.

Karen Maas of the Erasmus Center for Sustainability participated in the research. “It showed that there are many environmentally harmful subsidies. These subsidies are designed to stimulate the economy, but they have negative environmental effects.”

Little was done with the results of the research at the time, says Maas. And that goes for many more studies on the same topic. The outcomes disappeared, she says. “Often in a drawer, eventually. To really build up policy consequences there, that doesn’t happen enough. Because we’ve known this for 20 years. We could have turned those knobs a little bit for 20 years, but that didn’t happen. “

She recently signed a letter of 300 economists and other university employees, calling on the government to quickly end fossil subsidies. She did this “to show that the calculations that the ministry is releasing are incorrect. And that there really is so much more money involved, which is a very environmentally harmful situation. And what really needs to be changed.”

Minister Jetten says in a response that the cabinet is making serious efforts to phase out the fossil benefits. But, he says, a good balance must be found: on the one hand, “accelerate and boost sustainability enormously, and on the other hand, we also have to keep an eye on security of supply and employment in the Netherlands. So stop doing it overnight is not always wise, but a rapid reduction will certainly be necessary.”