ABSTRACT
… having looked ahead to 2050 in the previous chapter, we now return to the present situation in The Netherlands. Climate change has been addressed in Dutch environmental policies for over a decade. This chapter considers the societal response to these policies. Has the increased policy attention led to changes in the patterns of behaviour of firms, authorities and consumers? We can observe a widespread recognition and acceptance that climate change is a problem that has to be dealt with. But we can also see a gap between the willingness to act at the political level and the slow change in actual behaviour of target groups and the absence of climate change as an issue in their daily lives. This forms the national context in which climate policies are developed and it poses several challenges for developing long-term climate change policy. The analysis in this chapter will result in the formulation of a number of dilemmas that need to be addressed in thinking about such long-term strategies. In subsequent chapters the authors will reflect upon these dilemmas.
