2000 Email: "organized and deeply committed environmental activism has long been an important part of the UNFCCC process through major groups such as NRDC, EDF/ED, WWF and Greenpeace"

Email 340

date: Wed, 29 Nov 2000 11:13:20 -0500
from: "Tom Jacob" <Tom.Jacob@USA.dupont.com>
subject: REFLECTIONS ON THE HAGUE...
to: ... schellnhuber@pik-potsdam.de... jonathan.pershing@iea.org, RKinley@unfccc.int, ...m.hulme@uea.ac.uk...pachuri@teri.res.in...
munasinghe@worldbank.org...

In The Hague, we saw for the first time organized disruption of the conduct of negotiation and publicly staged confrontations. While
organized and deeply committed environmental activism has long been an important part of the UNFCCC process through major groups such
as NRDC, EDF/ED, WWF and Greenpeace, they have operated within the structure as constructive participants in the policy-setting process,
along with industry. At The Hague, this "inside" role was supplemented by hundreds of young, relatively naïve demonstrators brought in
specifically to energize the environmental presence and confront the process. Even some within the ranks of the more established
participants -- while disavowing the takeover of the negotiating room -- saw fit to publicly offer Minister Pronk and the
UNFCCC Secretariate a veiled threat of "Seattle" if the process failed to deliver.

In the context of this resurgence of "environmental fundamentalism" it is also interesting to contrast the dynamics of the final
give-and-take between the US and the EU in The Hague.