Plea of the Dutch state about the coal-fired power stations of RWE and Uniper (Amer power plant - Eemshaven and Maasvlakte) Court of The Hague - Sitting of 21 June 2022 Case numbers C/09/608588/HAZA 21/245; C/09/608584/HAZA 21/244; C/09/611221/HAZA 21/419 - Dutch - 21 June 2022
Country
Year
2022
Summary
1.1.1 Iedereen hier aanwezig heeft de afgelopen vijf uur geluisterd naar een betoog over de onrechtmatigheid van de Wet verbod op kolen bij elektriciteitsproductie (hierna: Wvk). Alleen, daar gaat het vandaag helemaal niet om. Deze zaak draait alleen om de vraag of, en zo ja in welke mate, de maatschappij vervuilers moet afkopen als de Staat hen uiteindelijk moet dwingen om hun CO2 uitstoot te beperken.
1.1.3 Vandaag zal de Staat uitleggen dat RWE en Uniper ervoor hebben gekozen om kolencentrales in Nederland te bouwen, wetende dat COrreductie noodzakelijk was om klimaatverandering tegen te gaan en de doelen van het klimaatbeleid te halen. Zij hebben echter niet geïnvesteerd om de COruitstoot te beperken, uitsluitend vanwege financiële overwegingen. De Wvk is dan de logische consequentie van die keuze. Ik zal dit toelichten aan de hand van de totstandkoming van de Wvk, de voorzienbaarheid daarvan voor RWE en Uniper en ik zal uitleggen waarom de wet geen onevenredige gevolgen voor hen heeft.
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machine translation:
1. Introduction
1.1.1 Everyone here has spent the last five hours listening to a speech about the unlawfulness of the Act banning coal in electricity production. However, that is not what today is about at all. This case only revolves around the question of whether, and if so to what extent, society must buy off polluters if the State ultimately has to force them to reduce their CO2 emissions.
1.1.2 After all, RWE and Uniper are not asking your court to set aside the law. Instead, RWE and Uniper only claimed what really matters to them: namely that the State - and with it the entire Dutch society - pays them for stopping the emission of substantial amounts of CO2. Despite the fact that several publications show that the new coal plants were running at a loss until recently (it is the exceptional circumstances in the energy market that changed this), and neither party has even bothered to provide financial proof of the contrary, RWE and Uniper refuse to stop their polluting operations. Instead, the bill for their bad investments will be presented to the State. That's all it is about today.
1.1.3 Today the State will explain that RWE and Uniper chose to build coal-fired power plants in the Netherlands, knowing that CO reduction was necessary to combat climate change and meet climate policy targets. However, they did not invest to reduce CO emissions for financial reasons alone. The CoC is then the logical consequence of that choice. I will explain this on the basis of the development of the Wvk, the foreseeability of it for RWE and Uniper and why the law does not have disproportionate consequences for them.
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