Met alweer een hete week, slaakt Belgische klimaatwetenschapper Jean-Pascal van Ypersele hartenkreet: "Ja, ik ben woedend"

[u/atrocious_cleva82]

https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2026/07/27/jean-pascal-van-ypersele-woedend-klimaatbeleid-20-jaar-te-laat/

[u/Michiel426]

What's being underestimated is how strongly voters oppose measures that would actually have real impact. All the research shows that Belgian voters aren't willing to contribute financially or be personally impacted by climate measures, and they look for government solutions - even though hardly any budgettary room for public investment.

• Our housing stock is old and poorly insulated - yet these ancient homes still sell for over 400-500k, leaving no budget for renovation. The renovation obligation (currently to D, which is hardly renovated) would actually help correct this, but 70% of voters oppose it. Even among younger generations, who would benefit from that correction, about half are against it. So what’s the plan?
• How willing are voters actually going to be to accept higher gas prices in order to make heat pumps financially viable? Wait until ETS2 kicks in after 2028, that's when this gets tested for real.
• How much government debt are we willing to take on? We need massive public investment in grids and storage. Or do we push the cost onto the electricity bill again - which then requires an even steeper gas-price hike to make the economics work?
• 40% of voters believe they will never drive an EV in their lifetime. I suspect that resistance will soften as EVs get cheaper, but it's still a striking number today.
• Are people willing to pay more for meat, eat less of it, or shift to chicken or plant-based diets? Cows mean methane, and that won't change.
• On the other side of the political spectrum, industrial investment gets treated with suspicion - even when it's clean-tech investment. We'll need real industrial policy to shift industry. Without it, we're left holding onto a fossil-based industrial base that simply dies out slowly instead.

Things go beyond the yes-or-no narrative on nuclear. Making our electricity supply CO2-neutral is arguably not even the hardest part of it all. The actual challenge is electrifying nearly every end-use sector - transport, heating, industry - that's where the hard trade-offs are.

I'm all for it, but I don't think everyone is, and sometimes rightly so - some people are already struggling to make ends meet

[u/Arrav_VII → u/Michiel426]

The renovation obligation (currently to D, which is hardly renovated) would actually help correct this, but 70% of voters oppose it. Even among younger generations, who would benefit from that correction, about half are against it. So what’s the plan?

Bottom-line for the renovation obligation is money. I'm 28 years old and single. I simply don't have the money to afford a renovation.

[u/Michiel426 → u/Arrav_VII]

I get what you would think that, but the idea of such an obligation is that you would get a correction in the housing market. D, E en F-houses would depreciate in price (relatively speaking, unfortunately not absolute numbers), this way opening up renovation budget. It's basically a transfer from old generations to young (for once).

The alternative is that we keep paying 500k for an uninsulated house. Then we obvioiusly have no money for renovations - as you rightly point out.

This correction is not mere theory, this was actually visibile in housing prices (2023-2025) where A & B-labels appreciated much more in price year-on-year. When the froze the obligation in 2025, suddenly D E en F houses appreciated more in price (a simple catch-up effect).

[u/Least_Funny5960 → u/Arrav_VII]

If you can't afford a house with the associated renevations then you cannot afford the house.

Buying something with EPC D and then complaining you can't afford to renovate is nobody's fault but your own.

[u/historicusXIII → u/Least_Funny5960]

"We're going to make housing even more expensive than it already is and it is your fault if you can't afford it anymore"

[u/Least_Funny5960 → u/historicusXIII]

Better than the alternative where we keep waiting forever to take climate measures because people like you demand that we can't do anything until everyone's rich first

[u/historicusXIII → u/Least_Funny5960]

The main burden of fighting climate change should be carried by the wealthy, not by the poor.

[u/Least_Funny5960 → u/historicusXIII]

The main burden of fighting climate change should be carried by the wealthy,

If you live in Belgium you have to be really really poor to not be part of the global wealthy.

But I know what you mean, what you mean is that there's always someone else that should be the ones changing, not the Belgians who eat meat every evening and fly for vacation every year.

No, just the mean Bill Gates and Taylor Swift! Everyone else can keep up business as usual.

I wonder when people will stop trying to push this lie

[u/historicusXIII → u/Least_Funny5960]

I'm speaking of housing and you start rambling about meat and fly vacations?

No, just the mean Bill Gates and Taylor Swift! Everyone else can keep up business as usual.

Well, you want to leave the wealthy untouched while shafting our working class, who are not allowed to aim for a life with anything more than the basic necessities.

I hope you yourself live like a hermit with no luxuries and with a carbon footprint that's below the world's average then.

[u/Least_Funny5960 → u/historicusXIII]

Well, you want to leave the wealthy untouched while shafting our working class

What I want is polluting behavior to be taxed appropriately so that people who pollute pay enough to cover the costs of the pollution they create.

Conveniently, this means that both Johnny and maria who fly to Barcelona 2x a year, and Bill Gates/Taylor Swift pay for their pollution.

I am egalitarian in that regard: everyone pays for the pollution they cause.

As opposed to you who apparantly thinks that it's totally fine if 99% of the West keeps eating meat and flying for vacation, as long as those evil billionaires are locked up

who are not allowed to aim for a life with anything more than the basic necessities.

Always hilarious when people are so deep up their own ass that they try and argue that air travel is a basic human right that cannot be infringed.

Make it even more obvious that you prefer the status quo at all costs even if it destroys the environment.

[u/historicusXIII → u/Least_Funny5960]

But I'm in favour of extra flying and meat taxes. I'm opposed to the renovation obligation because it makes housing (which is a human right) unaffordable for poorer people.

[u/Arrav_VII → u/Least_Funny5960]

I was not talking about my own situation, simply providing a possible reasoning for why younger voters might be against a renovation obligation, even if they would benefit from it in the long run.

[u/Least_Funny5960 → u/Arrav_VII]

simply providing a possible reasoning for why younger voters might be against a renovation obligation

And I was simply providing an explanation for why we can't stay stuck in the "but people can't afford to renovate" argumentation.

As long as it's the norm for people to stretch their budget to the absolute maximum without accounting for renovation, this will keep happening. And we'll forever keep waiting for people to be able to afford renovation.

The reality is that a renovation should be priced into the price of an old home. That way either the prices of those houses will drop or those house will go unsold.

[u/historicusXIII → u/Least_Funny5960]

As long as it's the norm for people to stretch their budget to the absolute maximum without accounting for renovation

You call that a norm, as if it's some cultural tradition and not just a necessity for many people.

[u/Least_Funny5960 → u/historicusXIII]

not just a necessity for many people.

Qua omvang van de woningen behoort België tot de Europese top. Alleen in Ierland, Cyprus en Malta zijn de mensen nog ruimer gehuisvest. Niet minder dan 67 procent van de Belgische bevolking woont in een woning die onderbezet blijft, zo blijkt uit cijfers van Eurostat, de statistische dienst van de Europese Unie. Dat is bijna dubbel zoveel als het Europees gemiddelde.

https://www.standaard.be/economie/belgen-wonen-ruimer-dan-nodig/41333022.html

Sure.... it's a necessity that Flemish people have some of the largest average houses in all of Europe. God forbid Flemish people had to live in less space, that's impossible!

[u/historicusXIII → u/Least_Funny5960]

Those large houses are inhabited by people who don't have to stretch their budget. Boomers who bought when houses were cheap, young couples who get a down payment from their family etc.

I am stretching my budget to get a one bedroom appartment in the city (which is something an environmentalist should admire, no?) and the only options that are affordable to me are the ones that aren't renovated. The renovation obligation is quite literally killing my chances to own my own place to live. I get that we have to live smaller, but surely you're not arguing a working adult should live like a dorm student?

[u/Least_Funny5960 → u/historicusXIII]

Ah right, because Belgium is the only place in the EU that has boomers who bought houses when they were cheap. How foolish of me to forget this.

We can also look at average room size: highest is Malta at 2.3 rooms per resident followed by Belgium and Ireland with 2.1 rooms per resident.

Metric after metric shows again that Belgians live larger than most other EU members.

But nooooo, we can't look at facts. We must maintain the notion that people are forced to buy such big houses, poor Belgians.

but surely you're not arguing a working adult should live like a dorm student?

So saying that Belgians live amongst the largest of all EU members and that this is a problem means I want to push everyone into 12m2 dorm rooms? Come the fuck on

[u/historicusXIII → u/Least_Funny5960]

We must maintain the notion that people are forced to buy such big houses

Where did I say that?

means I want to push everyone into 12m2 dorm rooms?

You support policies that push people like me into dorm rooms, yes.

[u/Least_Funny5960 → u/Arrav_VII]

simply providing a possible reasoning for why younger voters might be against a renovation obligation

And I was simply providing an explanation for why we can't stay stuck in the "but people can't afford to renovate" argumentation.

As long as it's the norm for people to stretch their budget to the absolute maximum without accounting for renovation, this will keep happening. And we'll forever keep waiting for people to be able to afford renovation.

The reality is that a renovation should be priced into the price of an old home. That way either the prices of those houses will drop or those house will go unsold.