For our factcheck we did research about the Climate Change Performance Index, an index which show how well countries perform when it comes to climate change. More specifically we took a look at how Belgium performs. To say I was shocked about Belgium’s results might be a bit exaggerated, but still there was a part of me that was surprised.
I know Belgium is not the best performer in terms of climate policy and climate change regulation but the results are worse than I thought. We are in the top 3 of worst performing countries of the European Union on the Climate Change Performance Index. We are lacking in every category. We are miles away from our neighboring countries. And we are not in even close in catching them.
When something is going wrong we should look at a solution. Maybe the solution lies with us, maybe the everyday people have to change. We shouldn’t light our fireplace and eat meat every day. We should think about public transport more or use a bike instead of taking your car for transport. All of these things should be done, but we can’t change the whole climate change by ourselves. No, the government has to do more, but there lies a big problem.
Getting cynical
When there is a decisions that has to be made, Belgium is always quite slow. This is because of our political system. We have three governments a lot of regions and communities. Whenever a decision has to be made it has to go past a lot of people and they all have to decide, so the chance rises decisions will get blocked or denied. Whatever gets decided in Flanders might be ignored in the French-speaking part of Belgium and vice versa.
So after thinking about it a bit more, I am not surprised at all and I actually feel a bit cynical, because it seems we will never learn. Maybe next year we will improve on the Climate Change Performance Index, I doubt it, but I hope for the best.
RESEARCH | ARTICLE © Lennert Jeursen, AP University College Antwerp, Belgium
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This blog post goes along with this factcheck.