THE HAGUE, WILLEMSTAD – The question of who will ultimately pay for Curaçao’s climate adaptation could become increasingly important as the Netherlands’ Scientific Climate Council begins examining both Dutch responsibility toward the Caribbean countries and the much wider financing gap surrounding climate resilience.
The Scientific Climate Council (WKR) has placed “Climate and Kingdom” among its new advisory projects for 2026–2027, explicitly including Curaçao, Aruba and Sint Maarten alongside Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba.
Climate Change Conference held in Curaçao
The Council has already identified financing as one of the problems surrounding the current relationship.
According to the WKR, Dutch assistance to the Caribbean islands is often ad hoc, fragmented or temporary. The absence of a clearly defined long-term Dutch role makes it difficult for the islands to regard the Netherlands as a stable partner in climate-resilience policy.
The result, according to the Council, is uncertainty over money, responsibilities and institutional roles, while climate policy itself can be delayed.
The WKR is now asking what responsibility and possibilities the Netherlands has to contribute to climate resilience throughout the Kingdom and what forms of cooperation would be appropriate.
At the same time, another advisory project in the same work program focuses specifically on “Climate and Finance.”
There, the WKR warns that governments are not sufficiently taking into account either the costs of failing to act against climate change or the benefits of investing in action.
The Council also identifies a major climate-investment gap, including in climate adaptation, and intends to investigate how governments and financial institutions can better incorporate climate risks into policy and increase investments in climate-neutral and climate-resilient societies.
The work program does not state that the Netherlands will finance climate adaptation projects in Curaçao, and the two advisory processes should not be interpreted as a commitment of Dutch funding.
However, together they put two closely related questions on the table: what responsibility does the Netherlands have toward Curaçao and the other Caribbean countries, and how should the increasingly expensive transition toward climate resilience be financed?
The WKR itself says the Caribbean territories need greater certainty.
Its assessment is particularly significant for the autonomous countries Curaçao, Aruba and Sint Maarten because there is currently no political consensus in the Netherlands about the Dutch government’s responsibility for protecting those countries against climate change.
That distinguishes them from Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba, which are public bodies of the Netherlands.
Previous WKR recommendations have emphasized the importance of structural financing as a condition for effective long-term climate policy.
For Curaçao, the eventual conclusions of the “Climate and Kingdom” study could therefore have consequences beyond environmental policy.
If the Council concludes that the Netherlands should assume a clearer long-term role, the next question will inevitably be how responsibilities, decision-making and financial commitments should be divided between The Hague and Willemstad.
For now, the WKR has identified the problem but has not yet provided the answer.