Citizen’s perceived legitimacy of the Dutch natural gas-free heating policy

Abstract The Dutch Climate Agreement mandates sustainable heating of buildings by 2050, necessitating a transition away from natural gas towards electrification (heat pumps) and district heating. Dutch municipalities play a key role in this transition policy, as they develop and coordinate neighborhood-specific plans to implement sustainable heating solutions. Understanding how citizens perceive local policy plans can help policymakers to make choices in line with what citizens find important. This study aims to examine the perceived legitimacy of the Dutch heating transition policy as it concerns becoming natural gas-free. The first step in our analysis involved identifying key factors that may affect the perceived legitimacy of the policy in question. Subsequently, we tested the effects of these factors in a questionnaire and vignette study among Dutch citizens (n = 2,034). We found that citizens acknowledge and support the importance of addressing climate change (76%) and reducing energy dependence (88%). However, 39% does not feel represented by local council members. Moreover, the vignette experiment showed that collectively sharing transitioning costs, public ownership, price certainty, and communicating uncertainties would make policy more legitimate. Furthermore, participants value the right to opt out of district heating introduced by municipalities, even if this results in higher collective costs. When policy choices in vignettes were aligned with citizen preferences, a majority found presented plans acceptable and expressed no intention to protest. Conversely, vignettes misaligned with citizen preferences resulted in rejection and increased likelihood of protest. Since Dutch citizens are not obliged to comply with municipal plans, securing their acceptance and support is critical. Therefore, it is essential for municipalities to understand and carefully consider citizen preferences when designing local plans.