International

“It’s unfair that households rather than polluting corporations are footing the bill for the climate problem,” says SP Member of Parliament in response to new figures published by the Netherlands’ Central Statistical Bureau (CBS). The figures demonstrate that of the more than €25 billion which the government received in climate taxes in 2016, two-thirds was paid by domestic users. “Of course a great deal of money has to be invested in the climate policy,” Beckerman adds, “but that must be done fairly. The corporations that cause the greatest damage to the climate are contributing relatively little, while households which are far less polluting pay a great deal more. This will result in all the will to tackle the climate problem being frittered away.”

Beckerman believes that the parties now in negotiation to form a new coalition government should share out the costs of climate change more fairly. “Solutions could be found for example in a reallocation of energy taxes, so that the firms which emit the most CO2 also pay the most. So coal-fired power stations should be contributing a great deal, but instead they have in fact been exempt from taxes since last year. That’s impossible to explain to the millions of Dutch people who in recent years have had to pay ever more in environmental taxes.’