By Bart H. Meijer
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) -A Dutch court ordered the government on Wednesday to drastically cut nitrogen emissions in the Netherlands by 2030, in a ruling that could hurt construction and will put pressure on farmers to reduce livestock.
The case was brought by Greenpeace, which said the government was not doing enough to lower illegally high levels of nitrogen oxide emissions, caused by intensive farming and heavy use of fertilizers, as well as traffic and construction in the densely-populated Netherlands.
The court in The Hague said the government had clearly failed to comply with European regulations to preserve vulnerable nature reserves and cut excessive emissions of nitrogen oxides and ammonia, which hurt biodiversity and damage the quality of water.
The country’s previous government in 2022 laid out targets for reducing nitrogen pollution in some areas by up to 70% by 2030, but policies to reach that goal have largely been scrapped by the current government as farmers argued they were poorly conceived and unfair.
“Measures were already largely insufficient to reach the 2030 goal and there is no improvement in sight,” the court said, adding that the government’s lack of action was unlawful.
It ordered the government to ensure that it would meet its target by the end of 2030, and ruled that it should face a fine of 10 million euros ($10.4 million) if the goal was not met.
The nitrogen problem has plagued the Netherlands for years following rulings in 2018 by the European Court of Justice and in 2019 by the Netherlands’ Council of State that Dutch policies were failing to address it.
Efforts to reduce emissions by buying out livestock farmers triggered large protests, while courts have routinely blocked major construction projects until the problem is solved.
($1 = 0.9586 euros)
(Reporting by Bart MeijerEditing by Peter Graff and Gareth Jones)
