Dutch treasury misses out on 84 billion euro due to failing climate policy

Oxfam Novib and Milieudefensie publish a Green Tax Guide, with tax measures that mainly affect the biggest polluters and the super-rich while leaving low and middle income households almost untouched. The tax measures would deliver 84 billion in tax income annually and significant CO2 reductions, 8.3 megatons per year.

The Hague/Amsterdam, 3 June - The Dutch government is missing out on 84 billion euros annually by sticking to poor and failing climate policies. 84 billion euros is 18 per cent, almost one-fifth of the total Dutch government budget. This is according to the Green Tax Guide, published for the first time today. The guide was commissioned by Oxfam Novib and Milieudefensie. The measures in the Green Tax Guide mainly affect the biggest polluters and the super-rich while leaving low and middle income households almost untouched. The measures also deliver significant CO2 reductions, 8.3 megatons per year. This is certainly going to help meet the Dutch climate goals. Today, the parliament will debate with Minister Hermans of Climate and Green Growth on her climate measures package. It is already known from her package of measures that it is completely insufficient to meet the climate targets in 2030, included in the Climate Act.

The Green Tax Guide is a joint initiative of Oxfam Novib and Milieudefensie and prepared by research institute CE Delft. The guide describes five new tax measures, including wealth, frequent flyers, polluting and exorbitant corporate profits, and calculates how much these measures yield. The guide also calculates what the elimination of fossil subsidies for the industry would yield. In particular, the carbon tax on extreme corporate profits and the polluting investments of the super-rich makes a lot of money; almost €75 billion a year.

Donald Pols, director of Milieudefensie, is clear: ‘The Green Tax Guide shows that smart climate policy makes a lot of money. You can simultaneously combat dangerous climate change, protect ordinary people and boost public finances. Unfair climate policy is a political choice.’

The money released by these tax measures can be used in the Netherlands to insulate low-income homes, make public transport available and affordable for everyone and help businesses go green. Furthermore, the Netherlands has an obligation to financially support countries that are already hard hit by climate change. These countries have contributed little or nothing to the climate crisis, while the Netherlands' historical CO2 emissions are almost equal to those of the entire African continent.  

Michiel Servaes, Oxfam Novib director, ‘If Minister Hermans is not allowed by her own cabinet to propose good climate plans, we have to make them ourselves. Because the climate crisis is not waiting. Not for the Netherlands, and certainly not for this cabinet. People are already being hit hard by the climate crisis, here and worldwide. Moreover, future generations will be saddled with sky-high costs and devastating climate disasters.’   

The full package of measures not only ensures a fairer tax burden, but also a huge carbon reduction. In total, the package could reduce CO2 emissions by 8.3 megatons a year. By comparison, to meet the Netherlands' 2030 climate target, CO2 emissions must fall by an average of 7 megatons a year over the next few years. Between 1990 and 2023, emissions in the Netherlands fell by only 2.5 megatons a year on average, and by only 2 megatons last year, CBS calculated in March this year.

Oxfam Novib and Milieudefensie stress that research by the Scientific Council for Government Policy, the WRR, shows that only equitable climate policy, in which the biggest polluters pay, can count on broad support from the Dutch population. Especially the most polluting companies and the richest 1% are responsible for a disproportionate share of CO2 emissions. Yet they are hardly addressed by this government on their responsibility to drastically reduce their emissions. Indeed, Minister Hermans' new climate measures package actually rewards them. For instance, this cabinet is reintroducing a previously abolished fossil subsidy, she announced in April. 

‘There is no more time to lose,’ say Pols and Servaes. ‘The figures from our Green Tax Guide speak for themselves. It is time for good climate policies that do not work for the 1% super-rich and big polluting companies, but that benefit all of society.’