Building Bridges, Raising Dikes

For the analysis of the international negotiations, the policy science discipline and theories on regime formation were used. National policy development was analysed by means of the qualitative multi-actor Trinity model. The used data sources were interdepartmental archives, interviews and literature. In international climate policy, the Netherlands played a strong role as a broker and consensus builder and relied heavily on scientific knowledge. It used the EU to exert an influence on a global scale.

This strategy suits the Netherlands, being a small country depending on global climate action. Results show that explicit attention is necessary for both content and process aspects of the negotiation process to avoid unclear mixing of responsibilities of parties. Full communication especially on any change of role should be provided to all parties involved nationally and internationally in order to keep support and credibility. Also, the use of issue linkages is recommended. The use of both national and international research on both content and process to support ad hoc policy should be continued. The Dutch industry should join the international industry and actively participate and influence the climate change policy development. The NGOs in the field of development cooperation should recognise that climate change policy is important for economic development and financial aid for developing countries.