“As a country, we want to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the climate and energy transition,” the government wrote. Government Program.
Over the next three years, the government will develop a number of climate adaptation plans, such as the new National Climate Adaptation Strategy (NAS) in 2026. This sets targets for infrastructure, housing, health, nature, freshwater availability, agriculture and cultural heritage.
This year and in 2025, the government wants to carry out supra-regional stress tests to map out scenarios in case of rainfall. This would prevent another situation like in 2021 in Limburg. There, rivers overflowed due to heavy rain and municipalities were partially flooded.
In 2025, the government-wide climate action agenda will be added, and a year later, the cabinet wants to present a political programme entitled “Soil, subsurface and groundwater”, thus ensuring that Dutch soil is more climate-resilient.
By setting a national policy, the government wants to do away with local sustainability measures for homes. This will be banned, so that more standardized construction, including factory construction, can take place, the government said in the housing section of the program.
Biodiversity
With regard to biodiversity, the programme states that the government is committed to national and international legislation and regulations relating to nature, biodiversity and climate.
The BBB seal is recognisable. In all six cases where biodiversity is mentioned, the relationship with agriculture and rural areas is always specified. Urban green spaces are not mentioned separately, although the government wants the neighbourhoods to become attractive. In the NOVEX urban areas, the government is also developing long-term green ambitions, together with other authorities.
The programme shows that there is a commitment to achieving results on air, water and nitrogen quality, at national and European level. It is still unclear how the government wants to do this.
The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries, Food Security and Nature, Wirsema, refused to let the provinces submit local proposals last week. She is coming up with a new way to reduce nitrogen and improve water quality, but it is unclear how she wants to do it now.
Investment model ban
The government sees value in further investment in preventive care. A “coherent and effective prevention strategy” will be developed for this purpose in the coming years.
Part of this may be to make the living environment of the Dutch people healthier, although it is not clear to what extent the government will investigate this.
It is imperative that the government closely investigates whether investments are balanced with what they generate. Although the link between greening and well-being has been widely demonstrated, the distribution of investments is often unbalanced, the government believes.
“It’s not enough to tie upfront prevention investments to savings later. That’s why we’re working with healthcare organizations on a prevention investment model.”
When it comes to the climate change investment mission, the government says it cannot be supported by public resources alone. This means the government expects the business community and residents to make a contribution.
