Fons Janssen talks about the European Climate Pact and its ambassadors

Mansur Philipp Gharabaghi
This is Climate Forward, the podcast where we talk about climate change and sustainability. Today we will speak with Fons Janssen, national coordinator in the Netherlands for the European Climate Pact. My name is Mansur Philipp Gharabaghi and I’m your host.

Fons, thank you very much for taking the time to join me today.

Fons Janssen
Yes, it’s a pleasure. It’s been a long trip from Limburg to come all the way to The Hague, but I’m very much looking forward.

Mansur Philipp Gharabaghi
So today we’re going to talk about the European Climate Pact. Maybe you can explain a little bit what’s the European Climate Pact and what does it want to achieve?

Fons Janssen 
The climate pact is one of the social programs of the European Green Deal, and what it means for me is like how we improve democracy, improve communication, and also how we can scale up green actions. Because the European Green Deal is this big policy like restructuring of policy in Europe, how we are meeting our sustainability goals and the Pact is really like the social program in it. How do we empower citizens, communities, local organizations, but also nationals and multinationals, how we all commit to those sustainability goals and how we help each other out. Because with the current pace of action, it’s not going to work. So the climate pact is there to to inform people, to improve awareness, to learn from each other with climate action and how we can scale up actions together.

Mansur Philipp Gharabaghi
Yeah. And did a little bit of homework beforehand. So you mentioned the Green Deal. The Green Deal, of course, being this large project of the European Commission. Maybe you can also say one or two words about this, because I think there’s a Dutch connection there also.

Fons Janssen
That’s very true, Mansur. So and the European Green Deal is one of the six key priorities of the European Commission, which was starting from 2019, from the European elections. And the European Green Deal is really like this full restructure of policy. So it’s not only like twisting some things, it’s a full overhaul of European policy. How we are meeting the goals on water, on food, on transport, on energy? And many of these things have now also tweaked with with their current geopolitical situation, with Russia invading Ukraine, with the energy crisis that is now coming up. And so we have to be flexible about how do we make Europe like strategic, autonomous and also like still how can our next generation really be prosperous and not only economically but also environmentally and socially?

The pact is also directly in the big framework already mentioned when the Green Deal was announced and what I think is that it’s also like really a reaction and institutional response to what we have done in 2019. 2019 was a very tumultuous year with many protests, both from farmers on environmental regulations, but also many young people by Greta Thunberg on the streets all across Europe and the world. And I think the EU has understood that citizens want to be more engaged and need to be more engaged and that we should have more direct engagement between the EU institutions and stakeholders in civil society. Because we also can learn from what Member States have done wrong, for instance, or in France they put an environmental levy, a tax on gasoline, and that sparked the jaunes gilets, the yellow vest movement in France because citizens don’t feel represented by the politicians. How we are like dealing with our sustainability issues. They see the daily struggles in daily life and the only think that environmental policy will make it worse. Well, we are eventually trying to do this that it will improve our quality of life and not only for ourselves, but also for living beings all around us.

Mansur Philipp Gharabaghi
I mentioned in the beginning that you are the country coordinator for the Netherlands, so maybe you can also explain for the audience in a few quick words, how does the European climate pact work? How is it set up? And what elements does it have?

Fons Janssen
Yeah. So to also give you some insights how the European Commission works. So all these kind of programs are actually executed often by external organizations. So the European Commission themselves do quite little of direct engagement themselves. They mainly do a lot of policy and they guide the organizations that execute it. So, DG CLIMA, which is like the European Ministry of Climate within the Commission, they made this program, they announced it and they created a tender. So groups of companies could apply for it to execute it. So a group of European communication and participation companies they wanted, and they hired me as a subcontractor to do the work in the Netherlands, as a country coordinator. And what does it mean? It means that I mainly do to three tasks: So, the first one is really like to support my community of ambassadors. It’s an ambassador program. Many of the things that we do are really via our ambassadors, what they find important what they want to highlight within the European Green Deal and how they want to make it concrete and understandable in the local community. That it can be your friends, your colleagues, your neighborhoods or maybe or even active on national level and you want to reach out to the Germans or to the Italians to facilitate transnational action. That is currently not that much the case in the climate movements. Many movements are still very national based due to cultural differences, language differences, and also our countries function differently when it comes to sustainability issues. So we need to understand each other and help each other out. And the pact can facilitate that. And I do that for all the ambassadors located in the Netherlands.
Secondly, I’m a social analyst, so I check which new social movements are popping up in the Netherlands and how can we engage them? And the last thing, what I do is also setting up strategic partnerships. So it’s a brand new program. Many of the national organizations and the national governments are not that much aware about it. It’s also a lot about internal awareness raising, how we can find the synergies between existing regional or national social programs and sustainability, and how the EU can complement that.

So that’s basically it. So helping out ambassadors, analyzing the landscape and creating cooperation.

Mansur Philipp Gharabaghi
Now that sounds really interesting. And also like you’re the spider in the center of the web trying to connect a lot of threats. And also I can imagine making sure that, yeah, people know that the European climate pact exists. Maybe before, because I want to dove into the topic what is a Climate Pact Ambassador, and how can anybody or I join the European Climate Pact to become an ambassador. But before we dive into this, I’d love to understand a little bit more. First of all, how did yourself come to know about this? Because yeah, I’m very curious. And then maybe you can say one or two words about the motivations that you had and why you want to be in this role.

Fons Janssen
Yes. So I will explain you the Dutch twist of the European Green Deal, and I was also quite close related to it. So back in a moment when the European Green Deal was being formed in 2019, I was still studying on my University of Wageningen. I studied biotechnology, I was already quite engaged in civil society and with student organizations, but also national organizations, for instance, via the labor union or via the Dutch, young professionals for Climate and I was engaged in the Dutch climate agreement. With young professionals we said, hey, goals towards 2030 with climate in the Netherlands, why not engaging the next working generation? Because we really need to do the physical, actual work in the coming decades. So it’s important to engage them to accelerate execution. But also the future will change. So are we aiming for the right goals? And from that I really got inspired about how important it is that our current generation of millennials and Generation Z are fully on board with the high level and often old decision makers. And after the Dutch climate agreement Diederik Samson, which was leading the built environment climate table actually moved to Brussels to help out Frans Timmermans creating the European Green Deal. Diederik Samson is actually one of the big architects with the big teams that he has in Brussels to actually create the green deal. So he, many of the learnings from the Dutch climate agreement he actually also like implemented in the Green deal although the green deal was much more larger and extensive. And I thought after the Dutch climate agreements, if I can do it in the Netherlands, why not also connecting youth from the streets, from the protests, also to the policy rooms? And I decided to study part time and do like advocacy and facilitate advocacy, in the other remaining time. So I hosted a youth summit in The Hague on the Dutch climate, on the European Green Deal. I hosted the digital sessions because Corona came in about how Europeans can still be involved in shaping the Climate Pacts and also making a subsidy program called Interreg more user friendly. And from the advocacy, I became an ambassador myself and from the ambassador myself, I really wanted to take responsibility how we turn our values that we brought into the pact into a realization. After the Dutch climate agreement, I could also have said yeah, I would just focus on my own with my local community and the national community. But what I realized is how interconnected things are and how important it is to care for your community. Because I come myself from a very small village, a rural town called Veulen, in the municipality of Venray in the north of the province Limburg and it’s for me very normal to take care of your community and to also translate what you’re doing, how, what it can mean for others, and how you can help each other out. And that sense of community due to my studies in Wageningen grew because you also realize about, hey, we’re not an island in the European Union, we are a founding member of it and the EU is also part within this bigger world community where we also pledged towards the Paris Agreement. So for me it really makes sense about how can we connect the dots and I really see from the rural environment that it’s very difficult for a rural citizen how to be engaged also in these types of social environments. And it really motivates me how we can create those bridges. And the pact is an amazing program, how we can facilitate that to many communities that have not been engaged by the EU while they are struggling with sustainability issues.

Mansur Philipp Gharabaghi
Yeah, I think this is particularly interesting when when we look back and we see this, you know, I see a bit of a rift or a voids between how politicians talk about sustainability and things that need to happen and how these things are communicated to the communities in our country and in Europe. And the reaction that you see. I mean, what immediately comes to mind for me is the nitrogen discussion in the in the Netherlands, which, you know, I think this is a topic that we need to discuss and address, but at the same time, it is a topic that you need to communicate and you need to share with the people who are directly impacted. So I think the work that you’re trying to do here with the climate pact is addressing exactly this.

Fons Janssen
Exactly it’s communication, but also the sense of community because polarization, why are we not making steps ahead when it comes to the nature crises, is because too few people feel part of the same community. Farmers with nature managers. Farmers see themselves as nature managers, but when they talk with ecologists, they often don’t agree. And also young people want to have a say on the future of the food system. But they don’t know how to reach those national negotiation tables or where these plans are being formed. And if you are not feeling part of the community that creates the plans, how can you ever adopt them or even promote them? And the pact is actually had this pan-European but also transnational community that we’re trying to build, not only communicate about it but also feel common ownership.

Mansur Philipp Gharabaghi
When we talk about creating this community, I think that really touches on your role as national coordinator. So maybe Fons, could you explain a little bit your role there or maybe how does your week look?

Fons Janssen
Yes. So I’m really like a new digital native and what I really like as a subcontractor, I think more EU civil servants should do it is go back to the place where you come from or where you feel home. Besides to maybe the place of where you work. Because it’s incredible to hear the responses that you work for the European Union or you work for it, or you’re an ambassador for a European program and you bring it to those people that have never engaged with someone who is part of an EU program. So as a digital native, I work for three days from home and due to the housing crisis in the Netherlands, I decided, and Corona, I decided to move back with my parents. Luckily, we’ve got a big house, people are working outdoors and I’m the only one with my home office. So it’s very calm with my dog. And so three days I work from home doing digital conversations doing my administration, doing the digital outreach.

Mansur Philipp Gharabaghi
Sorry, can I jump in here? You said people are working outdoors.

Fons Janssen
I live on a mixed family farm. So my uncle and aunt and my mother and my dad, they have sheep for nature, conservation and meat. We’ve got chickens for eggs. And my aunt and my mother also have like a care facility for old people. So they spend their days at our place so they can stay longer at home to prevent going to an elderly house.

Mansur Philipp Gharabaghi
So you actually yourself really know, you know, the difference that can happen from if their decisions are made in Brussels and then how are people or farmers particularly also impacted by.

Fons Janssen
If you take the nitrogen crisis, for example, it’s partly European. It’s because of our agricultural market that we have together. And the Netherlands often have this culture about high quality, but also very low prices. That’s why we have so many livestock here. But it’s a nitrogen crisis part of because we do this for nature, because with with Europe, we said, hey, we want to create protected areas called Natura 2000. And those rural areas, they have species that are unique and we want to protect them and they cannot withstand the influx of nitrogen, which is a fertilizer, which is normally good for crops, but not for plants that want to grow slowly and don’t want to be outpaced by grasses that outpace, for instance, the wheat in my own area of the bill. So this European policy framework now has effect on indeed what the emissions can have from farmers. And right now we talk a lot about the national policies, but it’s important both to understand what is European, what is national and locally, and how can each one of us help out. With the European Green Deal, we do that with the Farm to Fork Strategy. How do we create a new value models that maybe with less animals you create higher quality but still a price to live from?

Mansur Philipp Gharabaghi
I particularly find this discussion really, really interesting, and I think that agriculture also plays a major role in Europe and for our environment. But I interrupted you when you were discussing your week. So let’s get, sorry about that, let’s get back to this. So three days of the week…

Fons Janssen
…three days at home and two days moving through our country to visit ambassadors, to visit strategic partners. And so I’m very often in a train. And when I’m in the train, I’m also like to make a conversation because it’s also important to reach out to people that are not your usual suspects. And so that’s what I’m doing. So then I often combine two or three appointments. So for instance, yesterday I was at the National Environmental Congress with three of my ambassadors and, and hopefully also in the coming time, maybe once or twice a year, I visit an international conference also to link because also with the climate pact, it should also be part of all the elements of the European Union, for instance, the communication officers or the Europe Direct Centers, which are the local hubs that communicate about the EU in the Netherlands. I want to meet them so that they know my program and we can help each other.

Mansur Philipp Gharabaghi
Okay, that sounds like you have a very busy week. And in this week you mentioned, or in what you said so far, you mentioned a few times to Climate Pact Ambassadors, and that’s also what we want to talk about a little bit today. So what is a European Climate Pact Ambassador?

Fons Janssen
So a Climate Pact Ambassador… many shapes. I think it’s also united in diversity in that sense because the climate pact both wants to empower climate champions, people that already do a lot of good things that are already visible and really want to get the boost from Europe, how they can improve their impact, not only persuade to go transnational or to go to the European level, I think, but it’s still valuable because many national stakeholders think that the European things that should be arranged by themselves, by the European representatives, and I think that’s a wrong concept. I think more people should connect their local or national things directly to the EU level, but it’s also about just making a bigger impact on national and local level. And the second group of ambassadors are people that are, because of all the disasters that are taking place in our direct environment when it comes to to heavy rainfall in the south of my province in Limburg and in Germany and Belgium, people understand that indeed we are in a climate crisis, and you want to make a step within your capacity. But how do you do that? You face so many barriers and also by becoming an ambassador, we help you out with moving those barriers away to give you the skills and the network, how you can make your own impact that you want to make. What type of ambassadors? We have both ordinary citizens, but also the central governments can be part of it, businesses, but no greenwashing that needs to be absolutely clear. If you have like a track record of greenwashing practices, you will not be accepted. So, you really need to be a front runner or even a disruptor where, for instance, a startup, but also NGOs. So it’s the full scope. It’s really like a social contract that the EU is making with the civil society and citizens in Europe to take those green goals for yourself and how you can accelerate it.

Mansur Philipp Gharabaghi
When you say take these green goals for yourself and how you can accelerate it. I mean, I imagine that some people who who hear this are maybe interested in becoming an ambassador. To me, the term ambassador can sound a bit intimidating in the beginning…

Fons Janssen
Especially for the second group that just wants to make the first step. But I think it’s important in our journey to become an ordinary hero that having those skills is very useful eventually to achieve your goals.

Mansur Philipp Gharabaghi
I very much share this, this feeling that, first of all, you can learn in the position also, but I think it’s also interesting that we that we very quickly mention that being an ambassador does not mean that tomorrow you have to be on stage in front of 500 people and share your story. But but I think and that’s one of the particularities of the ambassadorship here, that you can also be an ambassador and do small actions in your community, right. I mean, this is…

Fons Janssen
…yeah, maybe another word could be like a steward, or maybe be an ambassador for your family, which like you just are an easy contact person to people when you want to talk about sustainability issues or you’re not nagging but in a positive way, try to engage new types of groups to eat healthy but sustainably. Or how can you maybe once a week cycle to your work with a colleague instead of taking a car? This kind of simple thing, is from me and would mean for me and also for the Pact an active ambassadorship.

Mansur Philipp Gharabaghi
Building on this, right, when I think about this, imagine that I was an ambassador in my community, it would also be possible to say, look, the action that I want to start with is, I just want to start talking with my street or the people living on my street on things we can do to improve our sustainability.

Fons Janssen
Yes. So for instance, my ambassador, Hannah Jung from Amsterdam, she’s doing that. She already works for a company which is very involved in sustainability. A company is called Closing the Loop and they are recycling electronic waste from Africa, which is dumped by European companies. And she said, okay, I don’t want to do even more like deep dive sustainability stuff in my topic, I want to just engage my old friends from my university and my direct neighborhood and tell them about what I’m doing. Because in an individualized country like the Netherlands, I think my village is an exception that we know each other as a community, but many people do not know all the neighbors in the streets. And she, Hannah, is hosting a Stammtisch, which is like a German word for bringing the people together on like to share dinner together and to talk of each other. And it’s a very low barrier way, how to inform each other.

Mansur Philipp Gharabaghi
Being an ambassador also means that you can just, you know, start engaging or let’s use a simple you can just start talking to the people around you and start to think, what can we do?

Fons Janssen
Right now, we’ve got 800 ambassadors throughout Europe and beyond Europe, so also friends of Europe, for instance, from the North African region or countries where we have got a strong diplomatic role of like collaboration with, can become an ambassador. Right now, you cannot directly become an ambassador. You need to contact one of the country coordinators. So if you’re living in the Netherlands, please contact me. But if you live in another country, also contact me and I will forward you to the country coordinator because now we only want to have like people that already like are motivated to come by because what I least expect from Ambassador is to join a once in a month a monthly meeting for one hour digitally so that we also build this community together, because that’s very important that you have at least a minimum commitment, which is regular, because if you build on the regularity, then you either can grow as a person and as a community. So it’s not just one action. You can do that. Then you become friends of the pact, but if you’re really an ambassador, then you’re really part of our community. And it’s a journey of at least two years that you take as an ambassador.

Mansur Philipp Gharabaghi
And as far as I know, it’s also sort of a positional, ehm position and…, as far as I know, it’s also an official appointment. So you do get a certification that you are a Climate Pact Ambassador.

Fons Janssen
Yeah, I’ve got the one in my sleeping hall, sleeping room with the certificate being an ambassador. Yeah. It’s also it’s also a piece of recognition about, some people, what they already do. And this is a recognition how the EU wants to support your sustainable actions.

Mansur Philipp Gharabaghi
You talked a little bit about the actions that you see, the ambassadors in the Netherlands and in the other countries that that you have contact with are doing. You spoke about the Stammtisch. Could you mention maybe one or two examples of something that is is very low key in the local community but still had an impact and maybe you have a second example that has had more visibility and then share a bit how both these different actions contribute a little, or a lot to achieving the goals of the Climate Pact.

Fons Janssen
Yeah, like indeed for the Pact it’s both for the small and big actions. I must say I mostly connect with my like citizens and the small and medium organizations, the big organizations, they are taking part with an accountancy bureau organization in Brussels to make sure that no greenwash is connected. Because it’s always easy to make big, nice green statements, but it also needs to be done clearly on paper how you achieve it. So I mainly work with the small and medium engagements and interventions, but also they can be meaningful. So two small ones that I really like is for instance Caterina Marinetti. She is active for the NGO New Wave, which is supporting young researchers on water governance. And in March we had the day on the National Water Day so that we take care of our water environment, so the canals in The Hague. So we did, we combined a clean up action with a local NGO, with having a like a high level online dialog on water policy and connecting this systemic discussion with just really grassroot action and to combine it, that’s for me really powerful about how I like empower my ambassador, but also really connecting the practice with the theory.
The second one is with Lisanne Van Oosterhoud, she’s living in Zoetermeer and Lisanne is all passionate about food and especially delicious food. So last week was World Cycling Day and with World Cycling Day, we picked up chocolates from the chocolate makers in Amsterdam, a sustainable chocolate factory where the chocolates are shipped by sailing boats all the way from the Dominican Republic. And we brought it to the trade shops through the province of North Holland and South Holland by bike.

Mansur Philipp Gharabaghi
Okay, those are two great examples I think. And also show a little bit what you as a national coordinator can contribute to make ideas that are by themselves already quite good, you know, they even become bigger if you combine them. And I love the idea of, of this chocolate so maybe we can also at the end to share some for people who want to buy this chocolate.

Fons Janssen
It will be put in the show notes.

Mansur Philipp Gharabaghi
Is there anything that we missed that you say, “this is something that I really want to share about the Pact and I want people to know” that you want to still add?

Fons Janssen
Yeah, I think the message that I want to bring, especially to people already involved in your neighborhood association or your sport association or your active with your church or mosque, I think it’s very important that we move beyond the usual suspects that really people from within the social field think about, hey, how can we contribute to it? Because the imam or the pope already said, hey, we need to take care of our of our future and of the things that we have inherited by God, or if you are active with your neighborhood association, how can you help out with greening, making environment more green? Please contact us because even if it’s a small community, it’s still meaningful. And the EU also has policy programs and even funding programs that you that you can use. So the Pact is really like this network and also offers for people that do not feel connected to Brussels and that still want to have some help. So please reach out to us because me am my 50 ambassadors in the Netherlands are very much willing to help out.

Mansur Philipp Gharabaghi
I do have one last question. You indirectly mentioned it already, but I want to repeat it because I think it’s really important: if I want to become a European climate pact ambassador and I have you know, you mentioned it before, I ideally people have an interest and they want to become active. How do I do it?

Fons Janssen
So you can do it in two ways. You can go to the website, which will be put in the show notes where you can, or make a pledge to do a one time action in collaboration with the Pact. And if you want to have long term commitments, you can become an ambassador. And with an ambassador you can just send me an email NL@EUclimatepact.eu and we will, like me or my ambassadors, will engage you to really understand if you truly are motivated and if you are complimentary about our community and then we just onboard you already in the inofficial networks and the structures of the pact. And then the country coordinator will guide you through to become an official EU ambassador.

Mansur Philipp Gharabaghi
Okay. So we’ll make sure that we put these email addresses also in the show notes that if you are interested, please reach out to Fons and the European climate pact. And I think there’s plenty of help to get you on board.
Thanks Fons for joining me. We’re at the end of our conversation here and we’ve barely made it in half an hour. So, yeah, thanks for coming here. I really appreciate it. I know it’s been an early morning for you. It was great talking to you. I’m really excited about the work that you’re doing in the Climate Pact. And yeah, we’ll keep an eye out where this is going and we will talk to more ambassadors in the coming episodes.

Fons Janssen
Thank you, Mansur. It was really a lovely conversation.