Closing Groningen didn't leave fossil in the ground. It took LNG from US and gas from Norway out of the ground instead.

The decision to stop using fossil fuels is not tied to the decision to stop one of the sources of fossil fuels. They're divorced.

Stopping fossil fuels requires investments in alternatives, and price mechanisms that disfavour fossils. Absent those mechanisms, closing one source of fossil just shifts demand to another source of fossil, which is exactly what happened.

Meanwhile closing the gas source cost the NL a few hundred billion euros, the amount of money it needs to transition to renewables. Instead it is spending that on US LNG and Norwegian gas.

The field shouldn't have been closed in 2023, it should've remained open until e.g. 2030 and all proceeds earmarked for massive energy transition subsidies. Instead we're just importing expensive fossil now and have insufficient money to meet our green ambitions.

> Closing Groningen didn't leave fossil in the ground. It took LNG from US and gas from Norway out of the ground instead.

That was getting out of the ground and burned by someone anyway.