Implementing International Climate Treaties into Dutch National Policy : a model-guided analysis on climate policy implementation in the Netherlands

In recent decades, the Netherlands has committed itself to a number of international agreements that aim at reducing global warming. Even though the Dutch government has expressed the urgency of climate and action and its concerns regarding global warming, the Dutch NGO Urgenda Foundation found that the Netherlands did not do enough to fight global warming and tackle climate change. The Urgenda foundation law-suited the Dutch State, and the court ruled in favour of Urgenda, stating that the Netherlands had to reduce greenhouse gas emission with at least 25% in 2020 relevant to the level of 1990. A crisis was caused in the government, since the government was far from reaching this goal. But how could the government led this develop into this crisis? Several policy decisions had been made in the decades before 2020, which are analysed in this research. By using models collective decision-making and policy implementation, an answer is provided for why international climate targets were not implemented fully in the Netherlands.