Lezing 2016 door Marjan Minnesma van Urgenda

Marjan Minnesma heeft de 6e Dick de Zeeuw Lezing uitgesproken op Donderdag 20 Oktober 2016.

Dutch policy continues to promote unsustainable energy options despite commitments made in the December 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change 

The necessity of combating climate change and curbing its destructive and disruptive impact on nature, on the environment, on the economy and on society as a whole is undisputed. Combating climate change requires the reduction of carbon emission. Many technologies and options are available, but vested interests to often seem to stand in the way of making the right policy choices.

For the sixth Dick de Zeeuw Lecture, Marjan Minnesma will set out that despite the Paris Agreement of DecembeMarianne Minnesmar 2015, in which the Netherlands and 194 other participating countries agreed to reduce their carbon emissions “as soon as possible” and to keep global warming “to well below 2 °C” and “pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C”, the Netherlands’ government is failing to take the measures that would effectively implement the commitments made in Paris. Reducing carbon emissions, she claims, is not ‘rocket-science’. Knowledge is available, technologies are operational. But while alternative energy options lie on the shelf, Dutch carbon emissions are still growing.

Marjan will present actual examples of policy choices that keep the Netherlands on the unsustainable track and will highlight some of the more sustainable policy alternatives.