Climate Change: The Netherlands cuts cows

The way kiwi farmers complain, you'd think their situation of being a country's largest polluters was unique and special. But its not. The Netherlands also has a problem with too many polluting farm animals. But unlike New Zealand, they're actually doing something about it:

The Dutch government has unveiled a €25bn (£21bn) plan to radically reduce the number of livestock in the country as it struggles to contain an overload of animal manure.

A deal to buy out farmers to try to reduce levels of nitrogen pollution in the country had been mooted for some time, and was finally confirmed after the agreement of a new coalition government in the Netherlands earlier this week.

But the plan, the first of its kind in the world, faces a huge backlash from farmers who have staged big street protests in recent years over the prospect of tough regulation and farmer buyouts. They fear permanent damage to food production in the country if too many farmers are forced to quit.

“We don’t want the system to collapse,” said Utrecht dairy farmer Marije Klever, from the Dutch young farmers’ union. She said farmers would oppose any nonvoluntary measures.

“I am a land owner, so a critical question is whether the government are allowed to push farmers out of the land. It can’t be The Hague telling farmers they must go, you need an agreement.”

While being lauded internationally as the “tiny country that feeds the world” and the continent’s biggest meat exporter, the Netherlands has been struggling at home with a pollution crisis caused by an excess of farm animals.

Which all sounds very familiar. The difference is a court order saying they actually need to cut pollution nationwide and a government finally willing to act on it by paying farmers to fuck off or de-intensify. While initially voluntary, there's the threat of legislation if not enough farmers are willing to stop polluting.

New Zealand's dirty farmers also pretend to be a "tiny country that feeds the world". But as Dutch MP Tjeerd de Groot says, "We can’t be the tiny country that feeds the world if we shit ourselves". We need to clean up our pollution, both nitrogen and methane, before we drown in it. And we can only do that by cutting cows.

Too many cows in the Netherlands

The Netherlands has a water quality problem. Too many cows, producing too much shit and piss, which flows into the rivers and poisons them. But they also have a solution: forcing farmers to destock or sell up:

Dutch politicians are considering plans to force hundreds of farmers to sell up and cut livestock numbers, to reduce damaging ammonia pollution.

After the highest Dutch administrative court found in 2019 that the government was breaking EU law by not doing enough to reduce excess nitrogen in vulnerable natural areas, the country has been battling what it is calling a “nitrogen crisis”.

[...]

Now civil servants at the finance and agriculture ministry have drawn up proposals which include slashing livestock numbers [pdf] by 30%, one of the most radical plans of its kind in Europe. Two proposed scenarios include forcing some farmers to sell emissions rights and even their land to the state, if necessary.

Aotearoa also has a water quality problem, driven by the same cause: too many cows. And its time we pursued the same solution as the Netherlands. We cannot let farmers continue to destroy our environment and poison our drinking water supplies for private profit. We need to make them stop, and make them pay for the damage they have caused.

Climate Change: A massive victory

Big oil is the big barrier to real action on climate change. But now a Dutch court has ordered Shell - one of the biggest oil companies in the world - to cut its emissions:

A court in the Hague has ordered Royal Dutch Shell to cut its global carbon emissions by 45% by the end of 2030 compared with 2019 levels, in a landmark case brought by Friends of the Earth and over 17,000 co-plaintiffs.

The oil giant’s sustainability policy was found to be insufficiently “concrete” by the Dutch court in an unprecedented ruling that will have wide implications for the energy industry and other polluting multinationals.

The Anglo-Dutch company was told it had a duty of care and that the level of emission reductions of Shell and its suppliers and buyers should be brought into line with the Paris climate agreement.

Note "and buyers" - this isn't some pissy scope 1 emissions measure which only looks at how much they drive and how much paper they use. Instead, they're basicly being ordered to cut oil production, and on human rights grounds (climate change is accepted as a threat to the right to life). And the latter provides precedent for similar cases in jurisdictions which comply with UN human rights standards (which, for the time being, includes the UK, HQ of BP. The other oil majors are headquartered in the US, which has no enforceable right to life).

Shell will appeal, of course. And then they'll probably try some dubious restructure and pretend that this nullifies the court order. But if they want to do business anywhere in the EU (including dodging taxes and laundering money through EU jurisdictions), they're going to have to comply. And hopefully there will be similar cases against other oil companies forcing them to as well.

Climate change: Taking it to court

The Netherlands is one of the countries most at risk from climate change, but its government isn't doing enough to stop it. So a group of Dutch citizens went to court to get a tougher emissions-reduction target, and won:

A Dutch court has ordered the government to cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least 25% by 2020, in a case environmentalists hope will set a precedent for other countries.

Campaigners brought the case on behalf of almost 900 Dutch citizens.

They argued the government had a legal obligation to protect its citizens from the dangers of climate change.

The case was a straight-out tort, made possible by the clear and obvious harm the plaintiffs would suffer if emissions continue: sea levels would rise and they would be under water. That's not going to be possible everywhere. OTOH, a case from people in low-lying regions, or areas affected by flooding or drought, might be an interesting option in New Zealand.

Dutch elections

The Netherlands went to the polls today in the fifth election in ten years - and the result is a mess. The good news is that the racist "Freedom Party" was massacred, its support shrinking from 15% to 10%. Given the toxic influence this party has had on Dutch politics over the last five years, with its attacks on tolerance and attempts to victimise Dutch Muslims and other immigrants, that can only be a Good Thing. But the bad news is that there's no clear government. The old coalition is kaput, but most of the new possible governing arrangements require a "grand coalition", which is unlikely to produce policy change or work in practice. Which likely means another few years of austerity - exactly the opposite of what is needed.

There are full results here, and there's some commentary on European Tribune here.

How it should be done

I've ranted before about democracy and foreign policy and the way governments (including our own) use secrecy around trade negotiations to lie to us about what they are putting on the table, sell us out, and advance deals which we would never let them agree to if they had to do it openly. New Zealand has particular problems here because of a constitutional tradition which explicitly excludes any democratic input into foreign policy. It is the queen government who makes treaties and wages war, not Parliament. In a supposed democracy, the people are excluded from some of the most important decisions it can make.

(That "correction" there BTW is to show how the process evolved, with a simple devolution from the monarch to her Ministers. Which may have made sense in the eighteenth century, but does not sit well in a 21st-century democracy with an MMP Parliament which can and should act as a check and balance on the executive).

Meanwhile, in the Netherlands, they're showing us how it ought to be done. Their government is currently considering whether to join the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, the US-driven treaty designed to inflict American-style intellectual property laws (such as the hated s92A) on the rest of the world. But to do so, they require the permission of their Parliament. Which has just said that it will not even consider the matter unless all negotiation texts and advice on them are published:

A few weeks ago, the Dutch House of Representatives’ committee of Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation requested the ACTA negotiation texts (the earlier versions of ACTA). The minister of Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation, Maxime Verhagen, sent the texts to parliament, adding a non disclosure obligation. In debates, Members of Parliament may not refer to the documents, nor quote from them.

Sunday, Bits of Freedom sent a letter to the committee, asking the committee not to accept the secrecy.

Committee member Kees Verhoeven (D66) proposed a message from the committee to the minister that no substantive treatment of any ACTA document can be made without publication of all relevant documents and above all that the committee can discus all documents in public. According to experts, the treaty has major implications for Dutch legislation (eg on copyright and Internet freedoms) and the House can’t at the moment consult experts nor can it inform the public about ACTA’s consequences, since ACTA is partly confidential. For this reason, the committee also requests the minister not to take irreversible steps, neither in Europe and nor in the Netherlands, in terms of ACTA. And towards the commission itself, the proposal to temporarily withdraw all ACTA related documents from the agenda until the minister discloses all documents.

Bits of Freedom reports a majority in the Dutch House of Representatives (D66, PVV, GroenLinks, SP and PvdA) adopted the proposal.

As a result, the Dutch Parliament will be able to have a real debate about whether this treaty is in their interests. And the Dutch people will be able to read the relevant documents, make up their minds for themselves, and punish their politicians if they get it wrong.

That's how a real democracy does foreign policy. We could do a lot worse than adopt the Dutch model.

Another nail in the coffin

A Dutch committee of inquiry has found that the Iraq war was illegal and that the Netherlands' support for the invasion was unjustified. Its the usual story - selective use of intelligence by politicians focused on toadying to the US, lies to the public and the Parliament; unlike the UK, though, the Dutch Parliament didn't buy the bullshit, and as a result Dutch forces did not participate in the invasion itself. Still, it casts the leadership of the time in a very bad light, and makes a strong case that Prime Minister Jan-Peter Balkenende misled Parliament. The Dutch Parliament is likely to be looking into that, and hopefully they'll be able to hold him to account.

Dutch election

The Netherlands went to the polls last night in general elections, and in common with European elections of late seem to have produced no clear winner. The ruling Christian Democrats are the largest party, but ther eis no obvious coalition which can be formed on the right. Similarly, no obvious coalition can be formed on the left either. So the result is likely to be similar to that seen in Germany - a centrist coalition between Christian Democrats and Labour, possibly with the Socialists (who have had a runaway success this election) thrown in for good measure. And hopefully this will end the racism and immigrant-bashing seen in the Netherlands of late.

As usual, there is excellent commentary (including a pair of handy guides to the Dutch political landscape) on European Tribune.

And as an interesting point: the Partij voor de Dieren (Party for the Animals) won two seats, becoming the first party ever elected on an animla rights platform. It will be interesting to see how they spend their four years.

Dutch torture

In 2003, the Dutch government sent 1400 troops to Iraq as part of America's "coalition of the willing". Now, we learn that they abused prisoners in their care:

Prisoners were forced to wear darkened goggles, which were periodically removed to allow them to be exposed to bright light, the report said.

They were kept awake for long periods by being drenched with water and forced to listen to high-pitched sounds, it added.

There is no question (as far as the Dutch are concerned) that this is a violation of both international and Dutch law, and prosecutions will likely follow. According to European Tribune (which is an excellent resource for getting European news and commentary in translation), debate is centering on whether it qualifies as "torture" in terms of the Convention Against Torture, and therefore whether the soldiers involved will be charged with war crimes. Interestingly, the abuses were reported at the time, but there were no prosecutions; the government seems to have decided to sweep the whole affair under the carpet. To have this news break just days from an election is explosive, to say the least...

Fundamentally illiberal

The Netherlands is famous for being a tolerant, liberal society. So it's a little startling to see that their government is apparently planning to ban the burka:

The Netherlands may become the first European country to ban Muslim face veils after its government pledged yesterday to outlaw the wearing in public spaces of the niqab, or veil, and the burka, or full-length cloak covering the head.

The right-leaning coalition said last night that it would look for a way to outlaw the wearing of all Muslim face veils. The grounds for a ban were laid last December when parliament voted in favour of a proposal to criminalise face coverings, as part of a security measure proposed by a far-right politician, Geert Wilders.

Rita Verdonk, the immigration minister, signalled that the government would now push for a total ban, even though the legislation would be likely to contravene Dutch religious freedom laws.

"The cabinet finds the wearing of a burka undesirable ... but cannot at present enforce a total ban," the Dutch news agency ANP quoted her as saying after a cabinet meeting.

This is a fundamentally illiberal move. No matter what you may think of Islam, veils, or burkas, what you wear is a vital part of freedom of expression, and in this case of religious expression - values fundamental to a liberal society. In a liberal society, it is simply assumed that (barring workplace safety issues, or balaclavas in banks), you can wear what you like in public. It is not the government's business to dictate fashion or tell you what you should wear, any more than it is their business to tell you what you should believe or what you can and cannot do in bed. As John Stuart Mill pointed out in On Liberty

the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection.

There is simply no such justification here. While burkas may be undesirable for all sorts of reasons, wearing a burka in and of itself does not directly threaten anyone. The proposed ban is nothing more than an act of outright religious discrimination - and one that sends a clear message to moderate Muslims that their faith is incompatible with the west. So much for winning hearts and minds...

As for why this is happening, the Dutch have an election in two weeks - and some of their politicians aren't above a bit of opportunistic immigrant-bashing to boost their chances.

The Dutch won't get fooled again

In a few weeks time, the Dutch Parliament will vote on whether to send troops to Afghanistan. The move is part of a NATO deployment to cover the partial withdrawal of US forces. But there's a sticking point: the Dutch Parliament isn't as keen to put their troops in harm's way, and the coalition tensions could cause the fall of the Dutch government.

Both the opposition Green and Socialist parties are firmly against deployment. but more significantly, so is the liberal D66 party, which is currently part of the ruling coalition. The chief concern is that while the troops would officially be engaged in reconstruction work, they would be doing so in Uruzgan province - one of Afghanistan's most dangerous areas, and effectively a war zone. There are also concerns about "mission creep" - being dragged from reconstruction work into destroying opium crops, or worse, outright combat operations against Taleban forces as part of America's "Operation Enduring Freedom". While the Dutch may want to help Afghanistan (and they're already doing exactly that as a significant contributor to the ISAF mission), there's simply no appetite to become embroiled in what one politician has called "an American war under a Nato flag".

It's difficult to escape the conclusion that America's mishandling of Iraq is playing a role here. The Dutch were among the first to volunteer for the postwar reconstruction of Iraq, sending 1200 troops; they lost two soldiers and a civilian engineer when "peacekeeping" turned to combat. Having been burned once by the Americans, they don't seem to want to get burned again. And who can really blame them?