The Cool City of Amsterdam? : understanding the Amsterdam Environmental Zone within the framework of urban sovereignty

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The Cool City of Amsterdam?

Understanding the Amsterdam Environmental Zone within the

framework of urban sovereignty

Source: AVROTROS 2018.

Hidde Wams – 10986103 – hiddejyw@gmail.com Sociale Geografie & Planologie

Bachelor Thesis Human Geography Supervisor: Prof. R.C. Kloosterman

Second reader: unknown 14 January 2019 Word count: 14,300 (approx.)

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Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Harry van Bergen of the City of Amsterdam and Marijke Vos, former alderperson at the City of Amsterdam and current member of the Council of State (Raad van State) for their willingness to cooperate with this research. Their answers have been insightful, professional and utterly knowledgeable. It has been a privilege to interview them.

Second, I would like to thank my supervisor, Professor Robert Kloosterman, for his helpful and often humorous guidance throughout the process of writing this thesis. His academic experience has been of great value.

I must thank Giulia Squillace, whose brilliant master thesis on the circular economy has served as a great inspiration and a good example of what a solid academic thesis should look like. I would also like to thank my friends, many of whom have been writing their bachelor thesis simultaneously with me. Sharing the burden has been mentally healthy and, in fact, truly enjoyable.

Finally, I would like to thank my parents for their loving support throughout all my studies, and particularly during the process of writing this thesis. I would especially like to thank my mother, whose experience working for the City of Amsterdam has greatly benefitted my research.

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Abstract

Increasingly more cities throughout the European Union are introducing environmental zones, alternatively referred to as low emission zones, as a means to curb local air pollution. As a relatively new form of policy, research with a clear focus on environmental zones is still quite scarce. This study aims to contribute to the body of knowledge around environmental zone policy, by focusing on the case of the Amsterdam Environmental Zone. As part of the “Amsterdam emission free 2025” ambition, the City of Amsterdam first introduced environmental zone policy in 2008, before subsequently expanding the policy over the following decade. This study tries to understand the policy adoption of the Amsterdam Environmental Zone with reference to the theory provided by Benjamin Barber. According to Barber, cities are more capable than nation-states to deal with global issues such as environmental change. A combination between policy document analysis and semi-structured interviews conducted with two key figures involved in the policy making of the Amsterdam Environmental Zone provides the empirical data. The results show us that the Amsterdam Environmental Zone was largely introduced in order to make the city comply with legally binding European Union standards for air quality. Although environmental change mitigation is seen as an additional benefit of the Amsterdam Environmental Zone, it is not the main aim of the introduction of this policy. Therefore, this study concludes that we cannot understand the case of the Amsterdam Environmental Zone as an example of one of Barber’s sovereign cities acting autonomously to contribute to the fix for global warming. Rather, we may understand it as showcasing the European Union’s power to influence local governance.

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Chapter 1: Introduction

1.1: Research background

Since 2008, the City of Amsterdam no longer allows certain polluting vehicles into parts of the city region. Together, these parts of the city region are known as the Amsterdam Environmental Zone (City of Amsterdam undated a). The rules of this Environmental Zone have become increasingly stricter over the following years. The aim of this policy is to “keep the most polluting vehicles out of the city” (City of Amsterdam undated b). As a clear case of urban environmental policy adoption, the Amsterdam Environmental Zone fits into the “triumph of the city” narrative that has recently emerged within academic circles. This narrative promotes urban solutions to issues relating to dimensions such as health, safety and happiness (e.g. Edward Glaeser’s Triumph of the City, Charles Montgomery’s Happy City and Benjamin Barber’s If Mayors Ruled the World).

An author who has been an influential promotor of the “triumph of the city” narrative has been the late political scientist Benjamin R. Barber. According to him, cities are especially competent to target issues that are global by nature. In his influential work If Mayors Ruled the

World (2014) Barber advocates more urban autonomy and independence in order to tackle

modern day’s global issues, including terrorism, economic globalisation and, above all, climate change. Barber elaborates on these arguments in Cool Cities: Urban Sovereignty and the Fix

for Global Warming (2017). In this work he poses global warming as the single most pressing

contemporary issue facing humankind. Fortunately, though, modern cities have the potential to provide us with the solutions to tackle global warming, according to Barber. But if we want to succeed, he continues, cities should be allowed to operate autonomously, without being held back by the rule of nation states.

This study aims to focus Barber’s notion of urban sovereignty and the fix for global warming on the specific case of Amsterdam. Which political factors stimulate or limit the increase in the city’s urban sustainability? Does Amsterdam operate autonomously in this sense? Is the Dutch capital stimulated by the national government, or rather limited? Since these questions are still quite broad and abstract, my research focuses on a specific example of urban policy adoption, namely the Amsterdam Environmental Zone. This has resulted in the following main research question:

How was the Amsterdam Environmental Zone conceived and how does this relate to the notion of urban sovereignty and the fix for global warming?

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1.2: Academic relevance

The concept of the environmental zone (sometimes alternatively referred to as low emission zone or LEZ) is quite new (Rapaport 2002: 213; Dias et al 2016: 254). Perhaps partially because of that, research with a clear focus on environmental zone policy is still relatively scarce (Dias et al 2016: 254). Since not much research has yet been conducted with a focus on environmental zone policy, it is quite relevant to expand the body of knowledge regarding environmental zones. This research tries to make an addition to that body of knowledge.

This research fits into the field that investigates the potentiality for urban governance. The city of Amsterdam provides an interesting case, because of its specific positioning. Amsterdam has been applying a compact city policy since the 1970s (Wolsink 2016: 1052). Furthermore, Amsterdam is characterised by a historic, pre-industrial city centre, which is related to the city’s deeply rooted, yet highly complex bicycle culture (e.g. Kager et al 2016; Te Brömmelstroet 2016). The city has traditionally been governed by relatively left-wing city governments, with almost every post-war mayor coming from the Dutch Labour Party (Partij van de Arbeid), except for a small number of provisional mayors and the current mayor, Femke Halsema, who comes from the Green Party (GroenLinks). The positioning of Amsterdam as a compact city marked by a relatively left-wing and green-oriented political colour and a deeply rooted bicycle culture constitutes the city as a potential example city for sustainable solutions. This makes it relevant to investigate the potentiality for urban governance in this locale. Could Amsterdam indeed serve as an example to other cities?

1.3: Societal relevance

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), air pollution is one of the largest single environmental health risks, contributing to around 7 million premature deaths worldwide in 2012 and 4.2 million premature deaths worldwide in 2016, and traffic-related air pollution is seen as the major factor in this respect (WHO 2013; WHO 2018; Dias et al 2016: 253). Here in Europe, the situation is no less dire than in the rest of the world. “A large proportion of the European population continues to be exposed to poor air quality despite the significant reduction in emissions over the last few decades” (Holman et al 2015: 161). Like the WHO, the European Union (EU) also sees road traffic as a major polluter: “[r]oad transport is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, producing around 15% of the EU’s CO2 emissions. The Commission focuses on the reduction of emissions” (European Commission 2018a).

Air pollution is socially relevant for two reasons. First, air pollution poses significant public health risks. Second, air pollution has strong consequences on climate change, which is shown over and over again to have a giant (potential) impact on society. Therefore, limiting traffic-related air pollution is, undoubtedly, very relevant to the world’s societies. As policy aiming to curb local air pollution by targeting road traffic, environmental zones are an interesting new policy measure, deserving of academic attention.

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1.3.1: Towards an emission-free Amsterdam by 2025

This research is socially relevant with reference to the specific context of Amsterdam as well. The city’s air quality has been a controversial topic over the past years, as shown by a number of negative articles published in newspapers recently. NRC Handelsblad (one of the most respected Dutch newspapers) headed: These are the filthiest places of Amsterdam (Freriks 2018), in which Amsterdam is described as one of the most polluted cities in the Netherlands with air “full of toxic substances”. Het Parool (another respected Dutch newspaper with a strong focus on Amsterdam) headed: The Amsterdam air quality is insufficient according to

GGD (Het Parool 2018), GGD being the Amsterdam municipal health office.

The City of Amsterdam says it wants to improve the city’s liveability by improving the air quality. The city is aiming “towards an emission-free 2025” (figure 1), meaning that by this year, transport in the city should be emission-free “as much as possible” (Van Bergen 2016). The Amsterdam Environmental Zone is one of the measures that was designed with the intention to reach this goal (ibid.).

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Chapter 2: Theoretical Framework

2.1: The Human Impact on the World: The Anthropocene and Planetary Boundaries Many scholars have powerfully argued that we are currently living in the new geological era of the Anthropocene (e.g. Lewis & Maslin 2015; Waters et al 2016). This era (figure 2) kicked off during the industrial revolution (Barber 2017: 9) and is marked by the state in which humankind is “altering the planet, including long-term global geological processes, at an increasing rate” (Waters et al 2016: 137). Previously, this state of affairs has been ominously referred to as The End of Nature (McKibben 1989).

The end of nature has gone hand in hand with the rise of the human impact on the world. “The Anthropocene is the human epoch, an era in which, over the last two hundred years since the coming of the machine, our species has become the major factor driving planetary change, rather than accommodating itself to planetary boundaries” (Barber 2017: 44). The planetary boundaries mentioned by Barber refer to the safe operating space for humanity that has been famously established by a group of scholars headed by Johan Rockström and Will Steffen (2009). Transgressing one of the nine planetary boundaries (figure 3) within which humankind can operate safely may “trigger non-linear, abrupt environmental change” (Rockström 2009: 32). Crossing one of these key thresholds may lead to consequences that are “deleterious or even catastrophic” (ibid).

“The boundaries suggest how interdependent our manifold crises are” (Barber 2017: 45). In other words, living in the Anthropocene, we have to deal with enormous interrelated risks, such as biodiversity loss and global warming. These risks are essentially global by nature, meaning that they cross the borders defining territorial nation-states.

Figure 2: The Anthropocene as a distinct geological era. CE means “common era”, BCE means “before

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Figure 3: Planetary Boundaries after Johan Rockström et al (2009) Source: Felix Müller

(www.zukunft-selbermachen.de).

2.2: Addressing These Issues: Failing nation-states and the Triumph of the City

Modern nation-states largely fail to adequately address the risks as described above. Multiple diagnoses for this problem exist. According to the widely respected Professor of Environment and Development Joyeeta Gupta, “[t]he current, relatively short timescales for political election are not adequate to deal with society-wide and century-long problems” (Gupta 2012: 640). According to Barber, however, the failure to address global risks is a result of the fact that climate change is not contained by territorial nation-states. On the contrary, climate change is a challenge that crosses borders. Barber (2017: 65) calls this “the dilemma of bordered and blinkered independent states confronting borderless, interdependent problems. (…) We

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confront these brutally interdependent challenges with antiquated nation-states, wrapped in the very sovereignty and independence that leave them incapable of meeting the new perils.” Barber’s arguments strongly relate to the ideas posed by Neil Brenner, an influential urban theorist at Harvard University. In his 2004 book New State Spaces, Brenner (2004) criticises the traditional analyses of modern states. He “rescales” the understanding of states by emphasising the growing importance of “new state spaces” such as cities. Subnational spaces such as city-regions are increasingly influencing political processes, as well as supra-national spaces like the EU. Brenner calls this “the process of state spatial restructuring” (Brenner 2004: 304). “New state spaces are thus spaces of conflict, crisis, and contradiction” (ibid.). In other words, the contemporary political arena is more complex than just states governing their territories.

Barber takes it beyond Brenner’s analysis. According to Barber, we should redistribute the power from nation-states to cities. “Let interdependent cities do globally what independent nations no longer can do: let mayors and their neighbours, the citizens of the world’s cities, address climate, regulate carbon, and guarantee sustainability through cooperative action” (Barber 2017: 66). In other words, give “cool cities”, as “new state spaces”, the power to achieve sustainable solutions: let “mayors rule the world”.

Urban sustainable solutions are important for another reason as well, as cities generate about 80 percent of greenhouse gas emissions (Barber 2017: 67). Logically, this represents a weakness as well as an opportunity: “because they create much of the problem, they can contribute significantly to the solution, if they have sufficient resources and can act with sufficient autonomy” (ibid). If cities are allowed by national governments, they can reduce their emissions, thereby fixing a more than significant part of the sustainability problem. When addressing sustainability, it is necessary to add that, apart from environmental sustainability, “[i]t is important to remember that sustainability includes economic and social sustainability too” (Kauko 2012: 2054). Economic sustainability can be explained as “competitiveness and welfare to be sustained for at least the next two generations” (Kauko 2012: 2055). Social sustainability refers to systems that actively support the capacity of current and future generations to maintain a healthy community (ADEC Innovations 2018). These three forms of sustainability are interrelated and “all three dimensions of sustainability must be addressed to attain the most sustainable outcome possible” (ibid.).

Returning to Barber, it is noteworthy that his arguments fit into the “triumph of the city” narrative, which has recently emerged within academic circles. This narrative sees cities as the inevitable future of humankind, and promotes urban solutions to issues relating to dimensions such as health, safety, happiness, economic sustainability and environmental sustainability. Perhaps the most influential work with regard to this narrative is Edward Glaeser’s Triumph of

the City (2011). The subtitle to this work quite tellingly summarises this narrative: how our greatest invention makes us richer, smarter, greener, healthier, and happier. The alternative

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“triumph of the city” works include Charles Montgomery’s Happy City (2013), Richard Florida’s The Rise of the Creative Class (2002), and of course Benjamin Barber’s If Mayors

Ruled the World (2013). Since this study focuses on Amsterdam, it is noteworthy to mention a

work fitting into the “triumph of the city” narrative that finds its origin in Amsterdam: Zef Hemel’s De toekomst van de stad (“the future of the city”, 2016). The preface to this book, written by then Mayor of Amsterdam Eberhard van der Laan, references both Glaeser’s

Triumph of the City and Barber’s If Mayors Ruled the World. In this book, Hemel (2016) poses

a clear “plea for the metropolis”. According to Hemel (2016: 257): “the city holds the future.” Some scholars have countered this enthusiasm with regard to urban sustainable solutions. One of the most influential works criticising global urbanisation is Planet of Slums by Mike Davis (2006). Strongly influenced by the Marxist tradition, Davis paints a dire picture around global megacities, particularly in the Global South. According to Davis, global urban lives are increasingly lived in slums, shanty towns, and favelas. Davis clearly opposes the “triumph of the city” narrative: “[i]nstead of cities of light soaring toward heaven much of the twenty-first-century urban world squats in squalor, surrounded by pollution, excrement, and decay” (Davis 2006: 19). Towards the end of his book he even goes on to state that “[t]oday’s poor megacities – Nairobi, Lagos, Bombay, Dhaka, and so on – are stinking mountains of shit that would appall even the most hardened Victorians” (Davis 2006: 138).

Davis is strongly influenced by the ideas of Patrick Geddes, a late nineteenth and early twentieth century Scottish thinker. This influence is shown by the epigraph to Planet of Slums: “Slum, semi-slum, and superslum… To this has come the evolution of cities” (Geddes in Mumford 1961: 464). Geddes was convinced that the future of the city would manifest itself mainly in one of these three forms. “Geddes’s fears are vindicated in the poverty and economic divisions that have attended the rapid growth of sprawling conurbations in nations on the Indian subcontinent, where Karachi, Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, and Dhaka present themselves as much as megaslums as megacities” (Barber 2014: 182).

“The danger”, according to Barber (ibid.), “is that in reading Davis (…), we become convinced that cities are but a euphemism for slums, and slums are incorrigible features of urban life so profoundly distorting that the city becomes indistinguishable from the latrine, drowning in its own excrement, literally as well as metaphorically.” And this is obviously a strong exaggeration. In fact, the share of the global urban population living in slums has steadily decreased over the past decades (World Bank 2018). In 1990, roughly 47 percent of the world’s urban population dwelled in slums, whereas by 2009 this number had already decreased to approximately 33 percent (ibid.). This decrease in global slum dwellers is supported by UN-Habitat. In their Slum Almanac 2015 2016 they reported “a decrease from 39 percent to 30 percent of urban population living in slums in developing countries between 2000 and 2014” (UN-Habitat 2016: 2). These data go hand in hand with late Swedish public health professor Hans Rosling’s extreme poverty curve. Rosling shows how over the past 20 years, “[e]xtreme poverty dropped faster than ever in world history” (Rosling et al 2018: 52). Rosling shows a decline of extreme poverty from 50 percent of the world population in 1966 to a mere 9 percent of the world population in 2017 (ibid.). So, although it is of great importance to pay attention

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to the difficult lives of global slum dwellers, the claim that our planet is increasingly turning into a “planet of slums” is simply not true.

But there are also other arguments that counter the singular “triumph of the city” narrative. Homsy and Warner (2014), for example, have argued that most municipalities do not act to promote urban environmental sustainability. However, this does not necessarily clash with Barber’s arguments. Homsy and Warner (2014) have explained lower policy adoption among municipalities by capacity constraints. Barber (2017: 114) has pointed to the same: “the sovereigns cannot govern, but they can still ensure a paucity of municipal resources and jurisdictional competence that makes it impossible for cities to act aggressively and collectively.”

This brings us to the concept of “city sovereignty”, a concept that can be explained as the obligation of cities to protect the rights of their citizens, even when these are contradicted by nation-states denying such rights (Barber 2017: 117). Barber (ibid.) argues that in the US context, both the national government and the states “insist on denying cities the right of action on issues critical to their citizens, whether or not the cities being pre-empted are better positioned to take action.”

In short, global warming is a product of the Anthropocene and it puts humankind at grave risk. Territorial nation-states fail to successfully address this borderless challenge. According to Barber (2017), shifting the power to act from independent nation-states to interdependent cities can prove to be the solution for global warming. However, cities face capacity constraints, partly because they are too often held back by reluctant nation-states. With this theoretical framework in mind, it is interesting to examine a specific case of urban environmental policy adoption (such as the Amsterdam Environmental Zone) in-depth.

2.3: Zooming in on Urban Environmental Policy Adoption: Theorising about the environmental zone

Environmental Zones are alternatively referred to as Low Emission Zones (LEZs; e.g. Boogaard et al 2012; Dias et al 2016; Holman et al 2015; Qadir et al 2013). In my own words I will stick to using the prior term (environmental zone), but every now and then I will quote authors who prefer the latter term (low emission zone). I use the term environmental zone because this is the term that is used in the Netherlands, as it is in Sweden, the first country to have implemented environmental zones. Remember that both of these terms refer to the same type of urban policy, which I define as a geographic zone where older or more polluting

vehicles are permanently banned in order to curb local air pollution. Other authors have

defined the environmental zone as “a zoning tool to reduce air pollution from heavy road traffic and maintain the accessibility to city centers (…) by banning certain vehicles with unqualified emission levels from areas with high population density and environs sensitive to noise and air pollution” (Rapaport 2002: 213), or as zones that are “designed to limit traffic of old vehicles in city centres”, aiming “to reduce air pollution concentrations at busy urban roads” (Boogaard

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et al 2012: 132-133). Perhaps the most to-the-point definition has been provided by Dias et al (2016: 253): “Low emission zones (LEZs) are areas where the most polluting vehicles are restricted or deterred from entering.”

So, environmental zone policy aims to curb local air pollution. Two possible motivations to try and do this are: 1) to tackle negative impacts of air pollution on public health and 2) to contribute to climate change mitigation. As explained by the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), climate change mitigation refers to efforts aiming to reduce or prevent greenhouse gas emissions (UNEP undated). By way of explanation, climate change mitigation means addressing the climate change problem at its roots.

Environmental zone policy follows the “polluter pays principle” (Rapaport 2002: 223), meaning that the polluter – in this case the owner of a polluting vehicle – has to cover the expenses generated, rather than society as a whole (e.g. by using funds raised by the taxpayer). In this sense, a social transfer of the environmental costs is avoided, meaning that the ones responsible for the pollution are not allowed to shift the costs of that pollution to the society as a whole. This is sometimes referred to as “internalising the externalities” (e.g. Bhattacharyya 1995; Levidow et al 2016). Internalising environmental costs of pollution can contribute to a solution to the free-rider problem, that is seen as a “major obstruction to progress in the climate change negotiations” (Gupta 2012: 640).

In 2002, Swedish scholar Eric Rapaport wrote about the Stockholm environmental zone as “a unique Swedish transportation-planning tool called the Environmental Zone” (Rapaport 2002: 213). In 2012 – a mere decade later – low emission zones had already been implemented in 152 cities throughout nine EU countries, and were also being considered in other cities worldwide (Boogaard et al 2012: 133). By 2015, this number had further risen to approximately 200 environmental zones throughout twelve EU countries (Holman et al 2015: 161).

An important critique on the policy adoption of environmental zones was given by Eric Rapaport. “There was no verbal discussion or modelling of the effects of Environmental Zone on air pollution concentration levels, no program implemented to determine how air pollution would [see] changes that could be attributed to the Environmental Zone and no follow up study to determine the actual cost endured by companies” (Rapaport 2002: 215).

Actually, Rapaport’s critique is a combination between two independent critiques, the first one being that there was a lack of modelling of the potential impact of the environmental zone on local air quality. In other words, how could one be sure that the environmental zone would do its job? The second critique regards businesses. According to Rapaport, not enough attention was payed to the actors that had to “catch the blows” posed by the new policy: namely the businesses that had to update their means of transport.

In the following decade and a half, during the rapid rise of environmental zones being implemented throughout the EU, modelling of the impact before implementation became a

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more important aspect of environmental zone policy adoption. “Many cities have assessed the cost-effectiveness of introducing a LEZ pre-implementation using emissions modelling and, in some cases, dispersion modelling to assess their potential impact” (Holman et al 2015: 162). However, modelling did not fix everything. On the contrary, a new critique came to the surface. Having been repeatedly posed by scholars dealing with environmental zone policy, this new critique focuses on the fact that evaluation of the efficacy of environmental zones has been largely neglected. “Whilst there are a large number of LEZs there have been few good quality studies quantifying their impact on air quality using monitored data. (…) Many cities have assessed the cost-effectiveness of introducing a LEZ pre-implementation using emissions modelling and, in some cases, dispersion modelling to assess their potential impact, but there have been few post-implementation studies published” (Holman et al 2015: 162). In other words, modelling before implementation is not the only important part of environmental zone policy adoption. Assessment of the efficacy after implementation should also be included. Surprisingly (or perhaps not), in the cases where post-implementation studies have been conducted, there has been some controversy around the actual impact of environmental zones on emissions and air quality. “Despite LEZ are generally considered to be an appropriate measure towards achieving the air pollution reduction targets of the EU, the evidence about their effectiveness is somewhat inconsistent, which makes their application debatable” (Dias et al 2016: 254).

A 2015 study conducted by researchers from the United Kingdom and Spain reviewing evidence on the efficacy of environmental zones in five different EU countries (among which the Amsterdam Environmental Zone) concludes that “there have been mixed results” (Holman et al 2015: 161). This study references the 2012 study by Boogaard and colleagues, which concluded that the environmental zones introduced in Amsterdam, The Hague, Den Bosch, Tilburg, and Utrecht “did not substantially change concentrations of traffic-related pollutants at street-monitoring sites more than at suburban background sites outside the LEZs, even though concentrations were lower in 2010 (post-implementation year) than in 2008 (pre-implementation year)” (Holman et al 2015: 167). So, reductions of pollutants concentrations could not (entirely) be attributed to the implementation of environmental zones, since suburban sites outside the environmental zones also saw these reductions.

In short, “the evidence about their effectiveness is inconsistent” (Dias et al 2016: 253). Despite the controversy around the effectiveness of environmental zone policy in academic circles, environmental zones “have become regarded as an important measure to improve urban air quality” (Holman et al 2015: 162), albeit at least partially unjustified by scientific research. This seems to be no different in the Dutch context, as shown by this quote from a TNO (a Dutch independent research organisation) report on the possible effects of an expansion of the Amsterdam Environmental Zone: “The environmental zone is seen as a cost-effective policy measure to improve air quality” (Verbeek 2015: 6).

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Chapter 3: Research Design and Methods

3.1: Case selection

Here I will explain the research methods I used in this study. First, let me briefly touch upon the main reasons for my case selection. The Amsterdam Environmental Zone is a pre-eminently

geographic case of urban environmental policy adoption. As a student of geography, this

provokes my keen interest. The case of the Amsterdam Environmental Zone can be regarded as a common case, since “due to ever-higher particulate matter and nitrogen oxide pollution in the cities and local communities, regional entry restrictions and environmental zones increasingly dominate the European traffic” (Green-Zones GmbH 2018). At the same time, it can be argued that we are dealing with an extreme or unusual case, since Amsterdam is the first Dutch and even European city to include motor scooters into the environmental zone policy (City of Amsterdam, undated c). According to Yin (2014: 51) and Bryman (2012: 70), both types (common and extreme/ unusual) justify case study research. I argue that the combination between common and unusual makes the Amsterdam Environmental Zone an especially interesting case.

Furthermore, and not unimportantly, I have sufficient access to the data significant to this case, given that I speak Dutch and have a broad contextual knowledge of Amsterdam and its municipal policy. Yin (2014: 28) argues that sufficient access to data is critical in selecting a case.

3.2: Research questions

Now the main research question is to be subdivided into a number of sub-questions. The first four sub-questions are empirical questions. The fifth question relates back to the theoretical framework and brings the empirical and theoretical dimensions together.

1. What are the key elements of the Amsterdam Environmental Zone? 2. How did the process of policy adoption play out?

3. How does the Amsterdam Environmental Zone policy relate to Dutch national and EU policy?

4. What were the main reasons to adopt this policy?

5. How does this case relate to the notion of urban sovereignty and the fix for climate change?

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3.3: Qualitative methods

The research design used to conduct this study is a case study research design. The case study research design belongs to the broader academic strategy of qualitative research (Bryman 2012; Yin 2014). A case study research design allows me to investigate this specific case in-depth. This specific case study will be approached as a single embedded case study. A single case, because the aim of this research is not to compare the policy adoption of the Amsterdam Environmental Zone with other cases. The aim is rather to analyse this specific case in-depth. An embedded case, because this case involves units of analysis at more than one level (Yin 2014: 53). The main unit of analysis is the policy of the Amsterdam Environmental Zone. This is the unit that is to be investigated comprehensively. However, this unit of analysis also involves subunits of analysis. For example, the key actors in the policy adoption are subunits of analysis. They are embedded within the case as a whole, thus being embedded subunits of analysis.

Using a case study research design allows the researcher to combine different methods of data collection. This is called “triangulation” and has a positive effect on the reliability of the results, as it allows the consistency of a finding to be double checked (Bryman 2012: 717; Yin 2014: 241). For the collection of my own empirical data, both document analysis and semi-structured interviews are used. Document analysis will be used to analyse the official policy documents relating to the Amsterdam Environmental Zone. Document analysis – also referred to as “qualitative content analysis” (Bryman 2012: 557) – seems to me a suitable method to gain a comprehensive understanding of the key elements of a certain policy agenda, such as the Amsterdam Environmental Zone. Using document analysis, I will focus on answering the first four sub-questions.

Semi-structured interviewing of key actors involved in the policy adoption can help me to gain a more nuanced and hopefully more adequate understanding of the process of the policy adoption and of the reasons behind adopting this specific policy. Also, since the interviewees are authorities within the field of Amsterdam policy, they can potentially provide knowledge that is not included in the policy documents, but that might still be important to the case. Using semi-structured interviewing, I will also focus on answering the first four sub-questions. The fifth sub-question will be answered by relating the empirical data to the theoretical part from which this study emanates.

The key actors that have been interviewed for this research are Harry van Bergen and Marijke Vos. Harry van Bergen is a policy advisor for the City of Amsterdam and has been closely involved in the policy making of the original Amsterdam Environmental Zone targeting freight traffic, and subsequently he has been involved in the repeated expansion of the policy to target other types of vehicles as well. Marijke Vos is a former alderperson for the City of Amsterdam. Her portfolio included, but was not limited to, climate and environment. In this role, she has been a key figure in the policy making of the first Environmental Zone targeting freight traffic.

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The next step after data collection is data analysis. The approach of data analysis used for this research is a combination between deduction and induction. The deductive approach follows from the fact that my research is inspired by an existing body of theory (largely, but not exclusively, provided by Benjamin Barber). My study of the Amsterdam Environmental Zone tries to understand this case with relation to Barber’s notion of urban sovereignty and the fix for global warming. However, the nature of my data analysis will also include inductive reasoning. By analysing the Amsterdam Environmental Zone in-depth, I will try to produce new knowledge with regard to this specific case. In other words, my research will deal with producing new knowledge about a specific case, without losing sight of the existing theory relating to this specific case.

3.4: Limitations

Unfortunately, every researcher faces certain limitations while conducting research. This has not been any different for my research. First, finding out who were the key actors in this case has proved not to be easy. I have tried to use a form of snowball sampling (Bryman 2012: 202) to find out who were the key actors, meaning that the first respondent mentioned the importance of someone else, whom I interviewed subsequently. Although this sampling strategy has some shortcomings, it has a relatively good “fit” with the theoretical sampling strategy characterising qualitative research (Bryman 2012: 203).

Moreover, the City of Amsterdam only has limited capacity for interviews with students. For that reason, it has been made clear to me that I was allowed to interview no more than one civil servant currently working for the City of Amsterdam. I would have interviewed more civil servants, would this not have been the case. However, theoretical saturation was already nearly reached after having conducted the two key actor interviews. Therefore, I do not see this as an insurmountable issue.

3.5: Ethical considerations

I have used the ethical frameworks presented by Bryman (2012) and Yin (2014). Having reflected on my research, I do not think any ethical boundaries have been overstepped. Before the interviews, I introduced myself and the nature of my research. At the end of the interviews, I gave the respondents the opportunity to say anything that did not come up during the interview, but might have been relevant nonetheless.

The respondents gave their verbal consent prior to the interviews, both to be interviewed and for the interview to be recorded. Also, they have been given the opportunity to review the transcript of their interview and to point out any flaws. The respondents have given their consent to be quoted by name after having reviewed the transcript of their interview.

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Chapter 4: Explaining the Environmental Zone

4.1: The key elements of the Amsterdam Environmental Zone

Before diving into the policy making behind the Amsterdam Environmental Zone, it is suitable to first gain a clear understanding of what this policy looks like. This chapter aims to provide an analysis of the Amsterdam Environmental Zone as it is, by pointing out the key characteristics of the policy that is the Amsterdam Environmental Zone. As such, this chapter deals with answering the first sub-question: what are the key elements of the Amsterdam Environmental Zone?

A combination between document analysis and semi-structured interviewing of key actors involved in the policy making will provide the answers to this sub-question. The analysed documents are: Maatregelpakket schone lucht voor Amsterdam (meaning “measure package clean air for Amsterdam”; Van Bergen 2016) and the webpages concerned with the Amsterdam Environmental Zone on the City of Amsterdam’s official website (City of Amsterdam undated a through h).

The interviews with Harry van Bergen (R1) and Marijke Vos (R2) have originally been conducted in Dutch. However, for the sake of clarity, I will quote here in English. I have translated these quotes from the original Dutch interviews myself, as neutrally as possible. I take full responsibility for any potential flaws or errors that may be found in the translation. The original full-length interviews in Dutch are available in the appendix (p. 45).

Interviewer: “What are, according to you, the main elements of the Environmental Zone?”

“Admission regime, of course. (…) And the size. And the enforcement” (R1).

So, according to R1, the three main elements of the Amsterdam Environmental Zone are 1) the admission regime, 2) the geographical size, and 3) the enforcement of the environmental zone. R2 also refers to these main elements, though formulated in a slightly different way. The information with respect to the Environmental Zone given by the City of Amsterdam on its official website can also be divided into these three themes. Therefore, I will stick to these themes as the main elements of the Amsterdam Environmental Zone.

4.1.1: Admission regime: Who is not allowed into the Amsterdam Environmental Zone? The first of the key elements is the admission regime, which:

“determines how much you will impact air quality. It also determines how much [money] needs to be invested. The stricter, the more investments, of course, but also the higher the

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“The most important thing is the exclusion of a whole set of freight vehicles older than a certain age. (…) So, by which the biggest polluters have been kept out of the city” (R2).

The Amsterdam Environmental Zone currently consists of five different environmental zones. These five environmental zones target 1) freight traffic (heavy goods vehicles), 2) delivery vans, 3) buses and coaches, 4) taxis, and 5) mopeds/ scooters (City of Amsterdam undated a). To distinguish between different categories of vehicles, EU vehicle categories are used, and to distinguish between lesser and more polluting vehicles, Euro emission standards are used. The EU vehicle categories (table 1) defined by the European Commission “classify vehicles for regulatory purposes” and are seen as “essential for the competitiveness of the automotive industry” (European Commission 2018b). The Euro emission standards are EU standards based on emissions. The higher the standard, the lower the harmful emissions from an engine. A vehicle with a Euro 3 engine will emit fewer harmful substances than a vehicle with a Euro 0, Euro 1, or Euro 2 engine. The Euro standards followed by Roman numbers (e.g. Euro I, Euro II, Euro III, etc.) apply to N3 vehicles only (vehicles weighing at least twelve thousand kilograms). Euro standards followed by Arabic numbers (e.g. Euro 1, Euro 2, Euro 3, etc.) apply to all other motorised road traffic categories.

Freight traffic

The freight traffic environmental zone is the original Amsterdam Environmental Zone. This Environmental Zone went into effect on the first day of 2008. The freight traffic environmental zone targets lorries of categories N2 (vehicles intended to transport goods and weighing between three and a half thousand kilograms and twelve thousand kilograms) and N3 (vehicles intended to transport goods weighing over twelve thousand kilograms) with diesel engines having a Euro 3 or lower (for N2 vehicles) or a Euro III or lower (for N3 vehicles) diesel engine. Those vehicles are not allowed into the Amsterdam Environmental Zone. A list of eleven special types of heavy vehicles may enter the Environmental Zone until they are thirteen years of age (e.g. crane trucks, armoured vehicles, and circus or fairground vehicles; City of Amsterdam undated d).

Delivery vans

Since the first day of 2017, the environmental zone targeting delivery vans is in effect (City of Amsterdam undated e). This environmental zone targets vehicles of category N1 (vehicles intended to transport goods weighing no more than 3500 kilograms) with a date of first entry (Datum Eerste Toelating: DET) after the first of January 2000. This means that vehicles that received their first license plate after this date, may not enter the Amsterdam Environmental Zone (ibid.).

Buses and coaches

Since the first day of 2018, the environmental zone targeting buses and coaches is in effect (City of Amsterdam undated f). This environmental zone targets vehicles of categories M2 and M3 with a diesel engine and a DET of 2004 and older, including foreign vehicles and public

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transport vehicles (ibid.) So, buses and coaches with diesel engines that received their first license plate before 2005 are restricted from entering the Amsterdam Environmental Zone. Taxis

The first day of 2018 also marked the start of the environmental zone targeting taxis with diesel engines (City of Amsterdam undated g). Taxis are defined as vehicles of category M1 and with a taxi registration at the Dutch Vehicle Authority (RDW, ibid.). Taxis with diesel engines and a DET before 2009 are not allowed to enter the Amsterdam Environmental Zone.

Mopeds/ scooters

The environmental zone for mopeds also went in effect on 1 January 2018. Mopeds (usually called “scooters” in the Netherlands) and scooter cars of the categories L1e, L2e, and L6e with a DET before 2011 are not allowed to enter the Amsterdam Environmental Zone (City of Amsterdam undated h).

Figure 4: A specialised traffic sign announcing the Amsterdam Environmental Zone. The Euro

standards not allowed into the Environmental Zone are shown for freight traffic, and DETs are shown for delivery vans, buses and coaches, and taxis. Source: City of Amsterdam (undated a).

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Category Vehicle description

L1e Two-wheel vehicles with a maximum design speed of not more than 45 km/h and characterised by an engine whose cylinder capacity does not exceed 50 cm3 _{in the case of the internal combustion type, or} maximum continuous rated power is no more than 4 kW in the case of an electric motor

L2e Three-wheel vehicles with a maximum design speed of not more than 45 km/h and characterised by an engine whose cylinder capacity does not exceed 50 cm3 _{if of the spark (positive) ignition type, or maximum} net power output does not exceed 4 kW in the case of other internal combustion engines, or maximum continuous rated power does not exceed 4 kW in the case of an electric motor

L6e Quadricycles whose unladen mass is not more than 350 kg, not including the mass of the batteries in case of electric vehicles, whose maximum design speed is not more than 45 km/h, and whose engine cylinder capacity does not exceed 50 cm3 _{for spark (positive) ignition} engines, or maximum net power output does not exceed 4 kW in the case of other internal combustion engines, or maximum continuous rated power does not exceed 4 kW in the case of an electric motor M1 Vehicles designed and constructed for the carriage of passengers and

comprising no more than eight seats in addition to the driver’s seat, and having a maximum mass not exceeding 3.5 tonnes

M2 Vehicles designed and constructed for the carriage of passengers, comprising more than eight seats in addition to the driver’s seat, and having a maximum mass not exceeding 5 tonnes

M3 Vehicles designed and constructed for the carriage of passengers, comprising more than eight seats in addition to the driver’s seat, and having a maximum mass exceeding 5 tonnes

N1 Vehicles intended for the carriage of goods and having a maximum mass not exceeding 3.5 tonnes

N2 Vehicles intended for the carriage of goods and having a maximum mass exceeding 3.5 tonnes but not exceeding 12 tonnes

N3 Vehicles intended for the carriage of goods and having a maximum mass exceeding 12 tonnes

Table 1: EU vehicle categories. Other categories currently not impacted by the Amsterdam

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Exemption policy

Another aspect of the admission regime is the fact that the City of Amsterdam handles an extensive exemption policy. This is shown by the following quotes.

“Sometimes, exemptions are granted, although this is a relatively very small share” (R1).

“The transition period and a kind of hardness clause, so you can exercise some leniency in a number of individual cases (…) That was also an important element” (R2).

One example of vehicles that are treated differently was already touched upon above: the eleven special types of heavy vehicles.

“Some categories of vehicles may be older than the average lorry – this is determined by a national covenant. You can imagine there are special vehicles, such as crane trucks, which are very expensive. Those vehicles have much longer economic depreciation periods than

lorries, so they are allowed to enter the environmental zone for a longer period of time”

(R1).

“Furthermore, we apply two criteria for our exemption policy. For the first one, we consider the proportionality. To give an example: GVB [the Amsterdam municipal public transport

company] owns vehicles that cost a few millions of euros each. Those vehicles are intended

to place derailed trams back into their tracks. We know that such a vehicle does not drive into Amsterdam for fun. They are too clumsy and too expensive for that. They only drive in

when a tram is derailed. So, you know: the impact on air quality of such a vehicle is very limited. And at the same time, replacing it is out of proportion compared to the improvement

in air quality. So, we grant an exemption to such a vehicle. That is one criterium” (R1).

However, not only special types of vehicles can be eligible for exemptions. The following quotes explain that “normal” vehicles can potentially also be exempted from the Environmental Zone rules.

“Another criterium is business economics related. The college [of mayor and alderpersons] has decided that companies should not be allowed to go bankrupt because of the environmental zone. So, if a company can show us that they cannot afford it, based on three

years of reporting, and that the bank won’t credit them, then they can get an exemption”

(R1).

“We also looked at a kind of hardness clause, for example for smaller companies having one lorry and no money to replace it. We have a kind of leniency arrangement for those” (R2).

Here we encounter a core dilemma: environmental improvements versus economic feasibility. The city government of Amsterdam has decided that companies may not go bankrupt as a result of the Environmental Zone. In other words, economic feasibility trumps air quality improvement.

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This core dilemma of environmental improvements versus economic feasibility has shown that economic feasibility is given priority over environmental improvements in the case of Amsterdam. Environmental improvements are attempted to achieve, but only if this does not lead to companies going bankrupt. This can be interpreted as an interconnection between the different dimensions of sustainability, as pointed out by Kauko (2012) and ADEC Innovations (2018) in section 2.2. Purely focusing on environmental sustainability might not be sustainable economically or socially. This is powerfully explained by R1.

“You always have to look at what is reasonable. You do not want to dislocate society, by prohibiting all emissions at once. Even though the climate problem is very urgent – in my opinion more urgent than the air quality problem – and will force us to take stronger action,

I think” (R1).

In other words, focusing purely on environmental improvements, losing sight on what is realistically achievable in everyday society, might dislocate society. That way, policy can hardly be sustainable. As explained by Kauko (2012) and ADEC Innovations (2018), all three dimensions of sustainability should be included in order to reach maximum sustainability. Not allowing companies to go bankrupt because of the Environmental Zone can improve social and economic sustainability. This is further illustrated by the following passage.

“There was a famous bakery in Amsterdam, that produces fantastic ecological whole grain bread, which is very well known in the city. They had a supplier for their ecological whole grain and wheat flour and that supplier was a small entrepreneur as well with just one old lorry and no money to replace the lorry. So, they said: if this continues, we have to dissolve our company, because this is not working out anymore. So, we negotiated about this for quite

a while and eventually we found a compromise to get them on board as well. But as an administrator, you notice that a spirited discussion can arise around one little company like

that” (R2).

4.1.2: Geographical size: Where are those vehicles not allowed?

The environmental zones targeting delivery vans, buses and coaches and taxis are all based on the original environmental zone targeting heavy goods vehicles. Only the environmental zone targeting mopeds/ scooters differs, as it is significantly larger than the other environmental zones.

The Amsterdam Environmental Zone targeting heavy goods vehicles, delivery vans, buses and coaches, and taxis largely follows the A10 ring motorway: those areas within the A10 constitute the environmental zone, and those areas outside the A10 are not included in the environmental zone policy. However, some business parks within the A10 motorway are excluded from the Environmental Zone, most notably RAI Amsterdam Convention Centre and Amstel Business Park (City of Amsterdam undated c). Also, most of Amsterdam-Noord (the neighbourhoods of Amsterdam north of the river IJ) is excluded from the Environmental Zone.

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The original Amsterdam Environmental Zone was by far the largest environmental zone in the Netherlands when it was established:

“(…) and at that time, it was by far the largest environmental zone in our country. It still has about the same size. Which is amply half the city, whereas most cities only have the city

centre as an environmental zone” (R1).

“But because we wanted to tackle all those heavily polluted streets, we eventually came out at a fairly spacious zone” (R2).

“Amsterdam really took a big area. At that time anyway, we had by far the largest environmental zone targeting freight traffic in the country. A couple of other cities also

started with such a zone, but Amsterdam had the biggest zone by far” (R2).

A map of the Amsterdam Environmental Zone targeting heavy goods vehicles, delivery vans, buses and coaches and taxis is included below (figure 5). Directly under, a map of the Amsterdam Environmental Zone targeting mopeds/ scooters is included (figure 6). When comparing the maps of the different geographical sizes, it is clearly visible that the Environmental Zone targeting mopeds/ scooters is significantly larger than the Environmental Zone targeting the other vehicles. The zone targeting mopeds/ scooters applies to the entire built-up area of the Amsterdam municipality (City of Amsterdam undated g). This means that the entire municipality is covered by this Environmental Zone, except for the rural area north of the city (Landelijk Noord: “the Rural North”).

The reasons for this difference in size are not entirely clear. It might have to do with the fact that mopeds “have been a point of attention for the City of Amsterdam for years now, both for their contribution to air pollution, as for their contribution to traffic safety, noise disturbance, and stench” (Verbeek 2016: 2). In other words, there might have been other reasons besides intended air quality improvement to limit this category of vehicles in the city. This possibility is supported by the following quote by R1, when asked about organised checking of mopeds by police on a square in Amsterdam.

“That could also be about noise disturbance or tuning [increasing the engine’s power], because that happens terribly much, everywhere. That happens in every city” (R1).

In other words, the possibility cannot be ruled out that the stronger limiting of mopeds/ scooters compared to other categories of vehicles is related to the perceived nuisance linked to this category of vehicles. In fact, the City of Amsterdam is currently limiting mopeds/ scooters even further by trying to ban those vehicles from the city’s many bicycle lanes (City of Amsterdam undated i).

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Figure 5: Geographical size of the Amsterdam Environmental Zone targeting freight traffic, delivery

vans, buses and coaches, and taxis. Source: City of Amsterdam (undated b).

Figure 6: Geographical size of the Amsterdam Environmental Zone targeting mopeds/ scooters.

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4.1.3: Enforcement: How to make sure those vehicles do not go there?

The third key element of the Amsterdam Environmental Zone is the enforcement of the policy. This is logical, since, naturally, enforcement of a certain policy directly impacts the effectiveness of that policy. This is, quite obviously, no different when talking about environmental zone policy, as shown by the following quotes.

“But enforcement is important, because if you do not enforce, then…” (R1).

“You just have to enforce very strictly, because otherwise it’s not going to work. Chauffeurs and companies had to know: it’s not going to be tolerated [to unlawfully enter the zone],

don’t think you’ll slip through, because it’s not going to work” (R2).

The City of Amsterdam uses automatic license plate scanners to enforce the Environmental Zone policy. Most of these license plate scanners are located at those places where vehicles can enter the Environmental Zone. If a vehicle that is not allowed to enter drives into the environmental zone, a fine is automatically sent to the owner of the vehicle. The fines for violating the environmental zone rules are respectively 65 euros for mopeds/ scooters and 95 euros for all other vehicles (City of Amsterdam undated a).

“We have enforcement with those license plate scanners; not every municipality in the Netherlands has those. Because we have those license plate scanners, we have a very high enforcement rate. As far as I know the highest of all [Dutch] environmental zones, although

I’m not entirely sure about that” (R1).

“And we thought about camera surveillance – which we introduced – to be able to tell from license plates (from which you can derive the vehicle’s age) whether there are violations”

(R2).

The fines are collected by the Dutch Centraal Justitieel Incassobureau (CJIB: the Central Judicial Collection Agency, City of Amsterdam undated c). This agency is part of the Dutch Ministry of Justice and Safety and “is responsible for collecting a range of different fines” (CJIB undated). This means that the City of Amsterdam does not collect the fines handed out in the name of the Amsterdam Environmental Zone.

“Amsterdam does not collect the fines; the fines are collected nationally. So, they won’t make us rich, to put it like that. For us it is much more important to have good enforcement with the camera system. And we do. The enforcement rate is really very high. That is important, because it means that indeed only those vehicles drive into the Environmental Zone that are

allowed to enter” (R1).

The fact that the City of Amsterdam does not collect the fines for breaking the Environmental Zone rules means that the City of Amsterdam does not have any financial reasons for the implementation of the Environmental Zone in this sense. The implementation of this measure

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has in no way led to an increase in income for the city through the collection of fines. In the words of R1: “they won’t make us rich”. In fact, the environmental zone measure has only cost the City money, since license plate scanners and new traffic signs do not come for free. This shows that the City of Amsterdam probably had sincere intentions to improve the city’s atmospheric environment indeed.

The environmental zone targeting mopeds/ scooters is not enforced through automatic license plate scanners, since this environmental zone differs geographically from the other environmental zones.

“All environmental zones [are enforced] the same way, except for mopeds and scooters. That would obviously not be possible; we cannot put scanners at every little road going into

Amsterdam. So that happens much more sample-wise” (R1).

In other words, the City of Amsterdam enforces the Environmental Zone targeting mopeds/ scooters via enforcers in the streets (City of Amsterdam undated g). Not only the physical enforcement differs from the other environmental zones; the fines distributed for mopeds/ scooters differ as well. Whereas owners of other vehicles violating the Environmental Zone rules can expect a 95 euro fine, owners of mopeds/ scooters in violation have to pay thirty euros less: 65 euros (City of Amsterdam undated a).

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Chapter 5: Analysing the Policy Making Behind the

Environmental Zone

5.1: Analysing the policy making

This chapter deals with answering the second, third, and fourth sub-questions: 1) how did the process of policy adoption play out? 2) How does the Amsterdam Environmental Zone policy relate to Dutch national and EU policy? 3) What were the main reasons to adopt this policy? The answers to these questions are mainly provided by the semi-structured interviews conducted with the key figures in the policy making (R1 and R2).

5.2: The process of policy adoption

This section will deal with the process of policy adoption and how this process has played out

on the ground. According to R1, it all started with the 2006 Action Plan for air quality.

“It all goes back to the Action Plan for air quality, the first Action Plan for air quality. (…) It was drawn up in 2005-2006. The big challenge was to come up with a plan that would make us comply with legal standard of air quality (…) of the European Union: the European limit values. Fifty measures were mentioned in that plan and one of those was the environmental

zone for freight traffic. So, that was the run-up to the environmental zone” (R1).

Both respondents have strongly emphasised the importance of deliberation and consultation when talking about the process of policy making. These are some quotes clearly showing this emphasis.

“It has been quite a tough trajectory. There was a fair amount of resistance against an environmental zone from the side of businesses. Of course, they already saw extra investments coming their way et cetera. So, those negotiations first took place officially, sometimes with very long consultations with adjournments. Consultations of up to six hours;

really long” (R1).

“And, of course, we had many meetings with the business community, because it was very important to get support for this idea. (…) All kinds of representatives of businesses have sat

around the table. We have also had many meetings with citizens who had complaints about air quality in their neighbourhoods. So, we really tried to talk to the people and businesses who were impacted by this as much as possible and include them into the planning” (R2).

In other words, the process of policy formation has been much more deliberative in the case of Amsterdam, compared to, for example, the case of Stockholm. According to Rapaport (2002), not enough attention was payed to businesses in Stockholm that had to “catch the blows”

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following the policy adoption of the Stockholm Environmental Zone. We may conclude that in Amsterdam this has not been the case, as shown by the long meetings between civil servants and the organised businesses.

R1 went on to explain that after a series of negotiations and deliberations, the first Environmental Zone for freight traffic was established. But it did not end there, since today the Amsterdam Environmental Zone policy is significantly more extensive. When asked about the reasons to repeatedly expand the policy, R1 and R2 responded as follows.

“Not only Amsterdam, but other municipalities too had to come up with additional plans, because of exceedances of the limit values. Then, at some point, Utrecht and Rotterdam established environmental zones for passenger cars, and we established those environmental

zones that I just mentioned” (R1).

“With the freight traffic zone, we weren’t there yet. That was clear. It was not enough to comply with the air quality standards” (R2).

So, since Amsterdam “wasn’t there yet”, the City came up with subsequent expansions of the environmental zone policy, much like other Dutch cities, to try and make sure the air quality goals would eventually be reached.

5.3: The Amsterdam Environmental Zone within the EU and Dutch contexts

This section will deal with the following sub-question: how does the Amsterdam Environmental Zone policy relate to Dutch National and EU policy? First the relation with the EU context will be addressed. Subsequently, we will scale down to the Dutch national context.

5.3.1: The Amsterdam Environmental Zone within the EU context

The important role played by the EU is a theme that returned numerous times throughout the semi-structured interviews conducted with both respondents. As noted above, the process of the Amsterdam Environmental Zone policy adoption started with the Action Plan for air quality. This is interesting, since “[u]nder European Directive 2008/50/EC, Member States must provide Action Plans for those areas that do not comply with air pollution limits” (Dias et al 2016: 253). Amsterdam was one of those areas, as follows from the following quotes. So, the Action Plan that set off the process of policy adoption was, in fact, obliged to the City of Amsterdam by the EU.

“The big challenge was to come up with a plan that would make us comply with the legal standard of air quality (…) of the European Union: the European limit values” (R1).

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“It was the bad air quality in the city, especially on a few big through roads with much traffic, where the air quality did not meet the health standards as established in Europe. That

was the most important reason [to introduce the Environmental Zone]” (R2).

In the previous two quotes, both respondents clearly state that the EU standards with regard to air quality (the European limit values; figure 7) and the fact that Amsterdam did not comply with those standards were the main reason for the City of Amsterdam to implement the environmental zone measure. This is further supported by the following quote.

“I have told you about those negotiations, and how they went, and that at a certain point we were only discussing the size of the environmental zone. At the City of Amsterdam, we were

aiming at the results we wanted to reach with regard to air quality. The EU played a role there. With the heavy traffic environmental zone, within the context of those fifty measures,

we had to reach a certain effect to start complying with the European limit values. That is how we negotiated” (R1).

The Cool City of Amsterdam? : understanding the Amsterdam Environmental Zone within the framework of urban sovereignty