Climate Anxiety in The Netherlands — A Contradiction in the Making
What a survey and an election teach us about changing attitudes to climate
The Netherlands has been in the news recently after the impressive win for the far-right Freedom Party in the snap general election. A country of 17.5 Million, The Netherlands is densely populated, with over 90% of the population now living in urban areas. Like other European countries it is ageing (42 median age) and growing very slowly (0.3% estimated in 2023). Ethnically 75% of the country is Dutch and over 15% are from other EU countries, Turkey, Morocco, Indonesia and Suriname. It’s well known to be a tolerant and forward-thinking country, which is why this election result has come as a big surprise, especially to people in the bigger cities in the country.
Riding on a wave of nationalism and anti-immigration sentiment, the Freedom Party won a surprising 37 seats, almost a third more than its nearest rival. This is despite its leader Geert Wilders and the party’s stance being one of near climate change denial. They have called spending on climate a pointless hobby and pledged to stop decarbonisation. In fact, climate was not very well represented on most parties’ election manifestos, at least not directly. Perhaps this was a reflection of the general public’s climate fatigue. A national survey on citizens’ views on climate change and the energy transition, who’s results just came out might help uncover some more insights.
The survey was run earlier this year with 18,0000 responses (almost 0.1% of the population) and was a follow up to a similar survey run in 2020. This helps us compare the change in climate sentiments and climate anxiety in the last three years, as well as gauge how Dutch people feel about the climate crisis in general. Here are some of my key takeaways. You can read the full report here.
1. Continued concerns about the future
The headline number was 75% of people were at least slightly concerned about the consequences of climate change for future generations, which was about the same as in 2020. To me, this means that people that haven’t come around to worrying about the upcoming crisis will likely not change their views until and unless it affects them significantly in a personal way. Expending more energy trying to convert these ‘Doubting Toms’ seems to be wasted effort.
There was a small change to those that are ‘very concerned’ about the climate for future generations, increasing from 31% to 34%. These are the people that would probably be most motivated to do something about it, but equally these would be the people most at risk of climate anxiety.
What is surprising is the number of people that don’t believe in climate change increased from 5.7% to 6.6% over the three years. This could just be survey bias error, but it could also be a result of anti-climate change propaganda in social media.
In terms of what people are concerned about, it is mostly drier summers (75%), with fewer people (59%) worried at least a little about rising sea levels. This shows how important lived experience is, with recent summers being extremely dry. You would think a country that is largely below sea level would be more worried about sea level rises, but it’s quite a hard thing to visualise until it happens, which is a common symptom of climate inaction.
2. Greenwashing isn’t working, but confusion abounds
One heartening statistic is that most people (almost 75% in fact) believe that companies, industries and aviation are not contributing enough to tackle climate change. Two-thirds say the same thing about non-EU countries.
However, we start to see the overwhelming amount of conflicting climate-related news catching up as 20% of people say they don’t know what the EU or the non-EU countries are contributing to tackling climate change. That number goes up to 25% when the question is about the Dutch government. So it’s not a matter of local vs international — there’s just a lot of confusion ongoing about how different actors are tackling the climate crisis. This might have played into the election results as well, and explain why the parties did not feature climate change policies at the sharp end of their manifestos.
Interestingly, when asked who was doing enough, over a third of people agreed that farmers were. This is a strange number given the government and farmers have been locked in arguments over the last couple of years over their nitrogen emissions. There is clearly sympathy for the farmers, which, again probably played into the election results.
3. The Energy Transition Might Be Losing Steam
There were some worrying statistics in relation to the energy transition. Less than half of respondents felt that oil and gas should be used less, comparable to 2020. Even more worryingly, fewer people wanted an expansion of solar (78% vs 83%) and wind (69% vs 72%) than in 2020. The country’s energy mix is only 10% renewable, so the falling interest could be a cause for concern. However, it’s still a large majority that wants an expansion, so all the signs are that renewable energy will continue to grow.
Solar is projected to grow, and despite only a third of daylight hours being sunny on average, 96% of the 6 million people in the country using solar panels were happy with the returns on their investments. The country of windmills is having a little more trouble with turbines, as only 19% of people are ok with having wind turbines installed in their area.
Interestingly, people seem to want an expansion of nuclear energy, with 36% of respondents in favour, a near 50% increase from 2020. This probably has something to do with the fallout from the energy crisis in the intervening years, and the associated cost increase to utilities.
Finally, electric vehicles are still growing, but not as strongly as in 2020, with government incentives planned to be scaled back. The number of households with EVs grew from 2% in 2020 to 2.7% in 2023.
4. Climate fatigue and doomer-ism is growing
While more people are giving up flying (or at least feeling more guilty about it) and eating less meat for the climate, people are beginning to hit a brick wall in terms of knowing what to do next.
Fewer people believe they can make a difference with their actions (53%) than in 2020 (58%). Fewer people know what they can do to make a difference (62%) than in 2020 (66%). Only 57% believe they should live a more climate-conscious lifestyle, which hasn’t changed since 2020.
These numbers point to a subtle decrease in enthusiasm for action in relation to the climate crisis. Reconciling this with the increasing fear of the future can quickly create spiralling anxiety. This can result in a sort of unconscious denial, or a focus on something other than climate. Stopping the ‘flood’ of immigration instead of actual flood protection, perhaps?
A lesson for other countries
I’m not saying that this exact phenomenon is sweeping across other countries, but after the push for ‘green growth’ post the pandemic, it seems some excitement is waning. The ongoing COP28 has been racked with controversy about increasing oil and gas production, the UK has already announced it will open new oil fields and China continues to invest in coal and renewables side by side.
Counter-evidence can be found in other surveys done across multiple countries where climate change being an imminent threat is agreed on by 70–80% of people. But for me the devil is in the detail — combining responses across different countries makes it hard to pinpoint national sentiments, which are so crucial for elections and ultimately policy change. I like this visualisation based on the 2023 IMF survey that asked about whether climate change was an imminent and personal threat. Comparing this with the exposure of each country to extreme climate events tells a striking story — that lived experience is far stronger than anything else in driving action and awareness.
Over 60 percent of people in developing economies, such as the Philippines, Colombia and Mexico, and only 20 percent of people in developed economies, such as Norway and the Netherlands, consider the personal impact of climate change imminent.
IMF Survey 2023
And this is why I like to look at national surveys rather than cross-border ones. That way you can pick up on sentiments and how they are changing, review that against the lens of your own country and see where the issues might surface — and crucially, what action you can take.
PS: If you want to read more about what action you can take, check out my piece on the ‘climate action game’ here.
