Meeting with the Dutch delegation

It came as an surprise: the Dutch delegation (for me at that moment: man, formally clothed, speaking like politicians who are very busy negotiating) wants to meet with Dutch NGO’s! I thought that they where too busy negotiation and didn’t have time to inform NGO’s about their achievements and even consult them. The meeting was planned on Friday 11th at 01.30 pm in a negotiation room of the Dutch delegation. Opposite of the room, the Holland Climate House was situated. In contrast, in the Holland Climate House everyone was welcome to join presentations and browse some flyers. The Netherlands rely wanted to show off with what their doing to fight climate change. Universities and companies could present their solutions here. But what was achieved by the Dutch delegation until now?

We entered the negotiation room with some other representatives of NGO’s (e.g. JMA, Milieudefensie, Wetlands International and Oxfam Novib) and two negotiators. Not surprisingly the last were men in formal clothing. In addition, a student represented youth in the Netherlands and a women of Oxfam Novib seemed to be a member of the delegation. Unfortunately the room had no roof and neighboring countries’ noise caused that some questions could barely be understood. The delegation especially wanted to know which topics where important for the NGO’s and what should be achieved. Most of the questions where regarded the billions of Euros which countries should set aside to fight climate change. These funds should be additional and thus not being taken from the current development aid. It was clear that very little could be achieved without participation of countries like the VS, China, India and Russia. In short most answers ended like: “On condition that China will participate.”

Unfortunately the members could no say anything about advancements made on REDD. We had to speak to Bas Clabbers who was the REDD-specialist. The only way: catch him in front of one of the many negotiation rooms. Hopeless, but this is the life of a reporter… We where unsuccessful.

The meeting was far from a waste of time. It was very interesting to see how negotiators work and in what terms they speak. Furthermore, it was nice to hear of the advancements there are with consultation of youth in such summits. The Netherlands, as one of the seven countries with a youth representative, seems the have stimulate this consultation widely. Even we got an invitation to run for being the next representative.

Bas Tinhout