The Green Transition: A dispatch from the “bathtub of Europe”
Weekly analysis of the shift towards a new economy.
Dear Readers,
Happy Friday from the Spotlight on Policy team.
This week we’ve got a dispatch from Rotterdam to give you some respite from the relentless omnishambles emanating from the governing party, for which all bets are off (see what we did there?) as the election campaign enters its final third. The former Conservative minister and New Statesman Spotlight contributor Chris Skidmore has endorsed Labour. If one of the authors of the infamous free-market tract Britannia Unchained (which also includes chapter from Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng) is endorsing the opposition, then it’s time to call it quits.
Luckily, our special offer of two months of New Statesman print magazines and digital access for £2 is still going strong. Click here to take full advantage.
In the meantime, I hand over to our sustainability correspondent Megan Kenyon with some excellent reportage from the Low Countries, where she spoke with world-renowned experts on a crucial part of climate mitigation and adaption: namely, keeping the tides at bay as sea levels rise and rainfall becomes more frequent. We might even make our cities more pleasant and liveable in the process.
Let’s get right into it.
This could be Rotterdam (or anywhere)...
Over three quarters of Rotterdam – the Netherlands’ second-largest city – is below sea level. A vital port, it sits on the edge of the Rotte, which runs through the Rhine-Maas delta. It is fondly known by some residents as the “bathtub of Europe”. But it is becoming increasingly obvious that Rotterdam is more vulnerable than most of its northern European peers to the increasing impact of rising temperatures.
The past 12 months have been the hottest ever recorded; and for countries in the Global North an increase in world-wide temperatures often means an exponential increase in rainfall. More rain means Rotterdam and many other places have greater exposure to flooding. This has the potential to cause lasting damage to the city’s homes, workplaces and metro system.
Indeed, Rotterdam’s residents and its government are well aware that something needs to change in order to improve their resilience against inevitable climate change. On a recent trip to Rotterdam – supported by Rotterdam Partners, the city’s tourism board – New Statesman Spotlight saw first-hand some of the work currently ongoing across the city to adapt to climate change.
Vincent Karremanns, one of Rotterdam’s eight vice-mayors, told the Green Transition last month that the pandemic had given the city and its residents an added sense of the importance of green outdoor space. With socialising curtailed, many people found solace in the outdoors. In towns and cities, public parks became a lifeline for residents.
“We’re turning a grey city very much into a green city,” said Karremanns, who is responsible for enforcement, public space and transport. He explained that after Rotterdam was bombed during the Second World War it had to be rebuilt, but this redesign did not include many green or natural spaces. The current government is looking to change that.
All that work pivots around the Seven City Projects, a series of public works that create seven new parks across Rotterdam. They are backed by a €233m investment from the municipality. The principal aim of the projects is to increase residents’ access to green spaces, but the parks will also provide natural water storage to accommodate increased rainfall, adapting the city to the impacts of climate change.
And it’s not just traditional parks being laid around the great Dutch port city: an increase in green roofs and rooftop parks will also add to green space in the city, as well as its water storage capability.
One example is the Hofbogenpark in the north of Rotterdam. It is set to be the longest rooftop park in the Netherlands and, if all goes to plan, will open in 2025, but the Green Transition got a sneak-peek. It sits on a former railway line previously connecting Rotterdam and The Hague – what was the first electric railway in the Netherlands.
Walking along the prospective route is distinctly reminiscent of a similar project in New York, the High Line – another former railway, which runs directly through the west side of Manhattan. Hofbogenpark will include a water system that captures rainwater and purifies it through a sand filter. The water is stored deep underground, and then reused to irrigate the park’s plants and trees and in fountains and streams that are dotted along the route.
As Vice-Mayor Karremanns explained, “You need green spaces to hold [excess water] as a sponge, so that we can constantly stem the flow of water into the city.”
The landscape architects at De Urbanisten, the Dutch firm which designed the park, have even included ramps to allow urban hedgehogs proper access into the park, creating a safe and comfortable habitat in the heart of the city. Hofbogenpark covers four densely populated neighbourhoods. It is hoped that a central, expansive park across this area will provide an essential and cooling green space to help residents deal with hot weather, and to prevent flooding during increasingly heavy rainfall. Karremanns tells the Green Transition that he hopes the park will become “a very iconic landmark”.
The approach to climate adaptation is a pragmatic one. The city’s leaders realise such a project is essential; yet they have managed to oversee a large shift in the city’s urban make-up seemingly without widespread upset. Similar projects in the UK are often beset by Nimby objections or beset by overarching political controversies (see Ulez).
Karremanns puts it simply: you have to make a case for these changes that appeals to residents’ sense of what might be missing from their environment. “We’re not simply talking about climate adaptation,” he explained, “we’re also saying look, you can go for a nice walk in this new park, you can have your lunch there, you can meet up with your friends, it’s about adding utility to it.”
While the city may – on the whole – look like a sea of grey right now, in the next five years a smattering of green and blue is set to bloom across Rotterdam. Through an expansive project of urban renewal, the “bathtub of Europe” could eventually pull the plug on climate change.
See you next week.
Megan Kenyon’s trip to Rotterdam was fully funded by Rotterdam Partners, the city’s official marketing and tourism organisation.
In Brief
Exclusive: In case you missed it, Megan also had this excellent profile interview of Labour’s shadow energy minister, Alan Whitehead. Few parliamentarians can claim to have his level of expertise in a highly complex sector. Whatever happens come July, his work will be key to the development of the UK’s energy policy after the election. Essential reading.
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