The minority governing coalition of D66, VVD and CDA was officially sworn into their new positions in late February. Earlier in the month, the parties released a coalition agreement with extensive plans for addressing the climate crisis.
The agreement is a marked shift from the previous composition of the Dutch government, and the new coalition makes clear that providing clear climate policy is their priority. An urgent climate policy plan comes not a minute too soon. The Dutch Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL) has identified the decreasing number of pathways available for the Netherlands to reach its emission reduction goals by 2030, and farmers, business representatives and climate action groups have publicly called upon the previous cabinet under Dick Schoof to deliver stable climate policy as quickly as possible.
Avoiding the yo-yo effect
The coalition’s ambitious climate plan seeks to reverse the instability and unsustainable policies of the last government. Consistent climate policy sends a positive signal to the public that the government cares about climate change, and that their own efforts as citizens are not falling on deaf ears.
People need certainty in order to make long-term plans and investments, and the inconsistency of yo-yo-ing back and forth – from bad climate policies to better climate policies – poses a risk to individual action, because it creates uncertainty.
If people don’t know if they will be able to continue using subsidies to cover the costs, or if they will be compensated for the energy they produce, they may rightly question if adopting sustainable technology like solar panels or EVs will be a good return on investment.
What aspects of the energy transition will the new government be dedicating time and effort to? And how big of a role does behavior change play in making those plans a reality? Below are some (but not all) of the coalition agreement’s action points for a range of environmental issues, presented alongside environmental psychology insights that the government would do well to consult in order to increase their odds of success.
Energy grid and the heat grid
The Dutch electrical grid is gridlocked, slowing down the energy transition. The coalition seeks to ease the load through net tariff incentives, flexible contracts and energy hubs, as well as a so-called “crisis law” to speed up permitting and opening the door to government intervention if construction and grid connections grind to a halt.
Expanding the network means major new infrastructure projects, which may face resistance from the communities where these projects will be built if the locals are not meaningfully involved from the early planning stages and not allowed to legitimately influence the outcome.
Research from our colleague professor Goda Perlaviciute strongly suggests that lawmakers would be unwise to bypass citizens’ needs and wants in the process of increasing grid capacity. What’s more, if an emergency law cuts citizens out of the loop, it would undermine public participation and therefore decrease acceptance.
The government will continue its ongoing push for heat grids. “In places where it turns out that a heat grid will not be the best solution, from 2029, we will encourage and normalize the roll out of hybrid, smart heat pumps,” the agreement reads.
While heat grids are a renewable energy source, this approach presents a conundrum: the lack of clarity about which neighborhoods may eventually get a heat grid means that people who care about the environment and want to be more sustainable now may go ahead and buy heat pumps, even in neighborhoods where a heat grid might be more suitable. That means that the heat grid actually becomes less effective, if not impossible.
Freedom to opt out
Letting people choose whether or not to connect to a local heat grid is also vital. An advisory report by the Expert Team Energy Systems 2050 – which our colleague professor Linda Steg was a member of and was presented to then-minister (and now prime minister) Rob Jetten in 2023 – stressed that “consumers cannot be forced to connect to a heat grid, and they must be free under all circumstances to opt for other electrical solutions.”
Furthermore, in her 2021 paper, our colleague Nadja Contzen also found that depriving consumers of a choice in the matter can create resistance. If there are plans for a heat grid in a certain neighborhood, it’s important to get people involved in decision-making, explain to them what the benefits are of a local heat grid, and then figure out how to alleviate their concerns in order to secure public support.
Energy support for renters
Home insulation is a sustainability measure that can make a big difference in terms of maintaining comfortable temperatures indoors and decreasing energy costs. But citizens without sufficient means to make that investment – namely renters – have not historically been able, or even allowed, to make their homes more sustainable.
The coalition agreement calls for using the NPLV (National Programme for Liveability and Safety) to help neighborhoods with the most energy poverty by requiring landlords to phase out energy labels E, F and G from 2029 onward, and labels C and D from 2040 onward.
This is a promising plan. Because tenants are dependent on their landlords, this approach will make it easier for renters to save energy in a more just fashion, because it will come paired with lower energy prices.
Its fairness depends on how expensive it will be for the renters: the most just form of this arrangement would be if rent price increases and energy price decreases balance out.
Government taking the lead
The agreement goes on to say that if insufficient progress has been made toward ending energy poverty by the year 2027, the government will take supplemental measures to safeguard their goals for 2040.
The government taking the lead on this is a significant step in the eyes of the public. Our colleague Xinran Wang’s research has found that political and industry leaders are widely perceived as the most responsible for and capable of taking climate action, yet their current inaction is perceived as inhibiting net-zero transitions.
Somewhat ironically, compared to citizens, representatives from governments and particularly businesses report that they have relatively low responsibility and capacity to take climate action.
“This discrepancy highlights the need to empower different actors, particularly professionals (i.e. from governments and businesses), to fulfill their roles in achieving climate goals.” In other words, government and business employees need to be shown how much they can do within their professional roles.
Other research by our colleagues Thijs Bouman and Linda Steg (together with Tom Dietz) revealed that government-led action also reflects the will of the public, because they want more climate action, in particular legislation which better enables citizens to act on their pro-environmental values. Decisions of democratically elected officials are also often assumed to represent the wider contemporary societal values.
Circular economy
Another powerful tool to help ensure a sustainable transition in the Netherlands is the creation of a circular economy, and the coalition agreement includes a stated goal of achieving a completely circular economy by the year 2050.
This goal requires systemic change to make circular behaviour more feasible and attractive, and such change can be accelerated through circular citizenship behavior. Our colleague PhD candidate Isabel Pacecho’s research found that talking about our own circular actions, and supporting and encouraging our friends, family, government, or employers to adopt them can also contribute to a more circular economy.
Elected officials would also be well advised to develop policy that focuses on realistic potential: behaviors with the most mitigation potential that people are most open to adopting. Our colleague Julia Koch and co-authors found that buying less clothing and choosing holiday destinations closer to home are good examples of behaviors with high realistic potential, making them some of the most effective ways to quickly win more ground in the battle against climate change.
As such, policy makers can – and should – help make it easier and cheaper for people to engage in them, which will make a circular economy a reality more quickly in turn.
Air travel
One of the most polluting sectors worldwide is aviation, due to its continued reliance on fossil fuels. The coalition agreement calls for opening the airport in the city of Lelystad for defense and for civil flights. The agreement also says the coalition will press for an EU-wide aviation tax.
By choosing to open up the airport in Lelystad to commercial flights, the government is signalling that they think flying is normal. Alternatively, the government investing in good alternatives to flying, like affordable and reliable train services, signals that elected officials also think that investing in sustainability matters to them. When governments, organisations and institutions adopt sustainability policies, this signal value tells citizens that their own eco-friendly actions matter, too.
Efforts to fly less and to make aviation less environmentally damaging enjoys broad societal support in the Netherlands: the Dutch National Citizens Assembly for Climate recommended that the government institute a kerosine tax which could be invested in sustainable solutions. The new government would be better off capitalizing on the support for taxing commercial air travel than putting more planes in the air.
Public transport and shared mobility
“We will encourage the use of shared cars, bikes and public transportation”, the agreement goes on to say. Research from our colleagues Berfu Unal and Michelle Lohmeyer into shared mobility would be a major asset to the government as they seek to achieve that goal.
In order to increase the likelihood of adoption of car sharing, Unal says that programmes should follow five tips:
- Keep it simple: don’t overwhelm users with too many practical matters
- Tailor it to each target demographic’s needs: differentiate based on the real must-have features for different users, like car seats for families with young kids
- Change people’s perceptions of the costs: seeing each itemized cost of car sharing can quickly feel more expensive than the less visible long term costs
- Focus on early adopters: appeal to people’s desire to be seen as trend setters
- Gradually gain people’s trust by introducing them to car sharing through pilot programmes before wide-scale roll out
Availability of public transport is also a crucial component to encouraging more car sharing, according to Michelle Lohmeyer’s findings. “To help car sharing succeed in rural areas, you have to make sure that reliable public transport is available as a back up plan, because otherwise, people will not be willing to give up their cars.
(Green) hydrogen
“We will continue to focus on producing green gas and green hydrogen, and we will invest in green hydrogen production and supply”, the agreement reads. “During the transition, under certain conditions, blue hydrogen (in combination with CCS) can play a role in scaling up the Dutch hydrogen chain.”
This plan raises a critical question: is there public support for hydrogen, or is there resistance toward it? A paper by our colleague Gonzalo Palomo Velez found that acceptance depends on who is producing it, what their motives are, and what kind of hydrogen is being produced.
People trust renewable companies more, at least in part because they are perceived as having more integrity (transparent and principled) than fossil fuel companies, who are seen as more competent based on prior experience, but also likelier to be developing hydrogen just to clean up their reputation. In his study, green hydrogen (made from renewable sources) was seen as more acceptable than blue hydrogen (made from fossil fuels but emissions are captured and sequestered), regardless of company history.
Nuclear energy
Research from our colleague Robert Goersch has found that renewable energy sources are perceived more positively than fossil fuels, nuclear energy and carbon capture and sequestration (CCS). Yet the accord declares that the nuclear cluster in the Netherlands will be developed further, and announces plans to build at least four new nuclear power plants.
Professor Goda Perlaviciute cautions that public acceptability is critical when it comes to bringing new energy infrastructure online, and the coalition should bear in mind the necessary pre-conditions established by a citizen assembly on nuclear energy in Borsele, a municipality in the Dutch province of Zeeland.
Carbon storage and sequestration
The coalition agreement also calls for storing carbon dioxide underground beneath the North Sea. Despite Goersch’s findings about CCS’s relative unpopularity compared to renewables, the Dutch Climate Council (WKR) has also acknowledged that CCS may prove necessary in a recent report. “Underground storage is important for permanent CO2 removal [for hard to abate emissions], but Dutch potential is finite and also needed for fossil carbon capture and sequestration.”
Focusing on behavior
Overall, the coalition accord contains some promising proposals to achieve a just transition, but also misses the opportunity to explicitly include the role of behavior change. The potential of both technical solutions and behavior change depends heavily on public acceptability.
By contrast, the critical role of behavior change in the climate crisis is the focus of a report by the Dutch Scientific Climate Council (WKR) published in February. The report committee, which our colleague Linda Steg chaired, urges the new coalition to recognize the absolute necessity of more effective and integral behavioral policy.
The report says that the government should create a context where sustainable (decreases greenhouse gas emissions) and adaptation (adapting to climate risks) behavior is made more easy, affordable, and attractive, along with adopting policies discouraging environmentally harmful behaviors and doing away with incentives that encourage such behaviors.
Tapping into the potential of behaviour and embedding public participation into system-wide changes are vital tools to make the sustainable transition a reality. Insights from environmental psychology research can set up the coalition’s plans for greater acceptability and success, and set up The Netherlands for a more sustainable and just future free from fossil fuels.
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