According to Klaver, fossil fuel subsidies can be seen as “rebates on the taxes we all pay.” And while she admits that not all grants can be stopped immediately, she believes that some can be stopped immediately. He cites the energy tax as an example. “Everyone in the Netherlands pays for it,” she says. “Except oil refineries or steel companies. They are exempt. You can simply abolish that exemption.’
His reasoning behind this is also that it will generate money for the Dutch treasury. In GroenLinks’ plans, the amount rises to around 400 million euros. «These are the official figures from the CPB, but there is no data, for example, on how much the exemption entails for refineries. So we don’t know. But there are estimates: it could be between four and 17 billion euros’.
Mixed support
According to political journalist Leendert Beekman, the proposal by GroenLinks and the PvdA has mixed support, although this support does not come from the right wing. “To the right of the VVD there is no support for any climate measures whatsoever,” he says. So it’s more interesting to look at the coalition. D66 has promised before the election to look into these subsidies and address them, and MP Raoul Boucke said it should be possible in time.’
Boucke was supported in this by coalition colleague and Christian Union MP Peter Grinwis, who thought it was all going too fast. Beekman: “He says there’s a danger that the big guys won’t be dealt with and that small business owners will be the victims.”
Guide to sustainability
But keeping everyone happy isn’t going to work. “It doesn’t matter what the state of the economy is, it’s always a bad time to end subsidies,” he says. ‘We have been proposing this since the founding of GroenLinks thirty years ago, and when I was a finance spokesperson ten years ago, I also tabled these amendments. The problem is that too little attention is paid to the consequences by sector.’
He continues: ‘We are in a huge climate crisis, the earth is warming and we are on a trajectory towards three degrees of global warming. This means that one third of all biodiversity on earth will become extinct. The consequences of doing nothing are many times greater.’
Attitude
He therefore denounces the attitude of his colleagues, who are asking to give companies the possibility of downsizing. “We have known since the 1980s that we have too many animals in the Netherlands and need less manure,” he says. “And every time decisions get put off and people are told they need time to prepare.” I’m not impressed. The climate crisis is huge, and instead of worrying about regulation now coming too fast, they should be worrying about the climate falling apart if we don’t act.’