The North Sea Agreement (NZA) was concluded in 2020 between the central government and stakeholder parties involved in – or affected by – the development of wind energy in the North Sea. One of the issues agreed upon in the NZA is to examine whether North Sea natural gas extraction will remain for domestic consumption and whether this extraction will remain within the Dutch carbon budget, based on the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports.
This study shows that natural gas extraction in the North Sea is for domestic consumption. Regarding the second question, the study shows that the projected Dutch cumulative CO2 emissions from the economy as a whole, including from natural gas consumption, are higher than the Dutch carbon budget, based on the 80% likelihood of no more than 1.5 degrees of warming agreed in the NZA.