Hier (Dutch for ‘Here‘) is the name of a large Dutch climate program whose fundamental idea it is to stress the immediate necessity to implement adaptation projects and initiatives to climate change. Hier introduces a new brand uniting and representing all initiatives that reduce the risk of climate change. This campaign involves not only >40 national charity organisations, but also government and businesses. Eventually, this could be a starting point for an international campaign.

The reasons behind HERE
Climate change is one of the most important threats to the future of our planet. However:

• Large parts of the public regard climate change as an unproven, abstract long term environmental problem rather than an urgent threat.
  
• Many initiatives to reduce the risks of climate change already exist, but are not part of a bigger movement.
  
• There is a lack of drive to take action: why does my individual contribution make sense
  

Our strategy: how to make climate change an urgent social issue
Development, humanitarian and nature conservation NGO’s have developed projects to reduce the risks of the impacts of climate change. These projects focus on safety, health, disasters, drought, desertification etcetera. Communication on these projects by the organisations involved can make climate change a here and now social issue. Unicef teaches children how to swim in Bangladesh, where drowning is still a major cause of infant mortality. Simavi is constructing a so called ‘Cloud catchers‘ in Nepal in the battle against drought conditions. The Red Cross and FreeVoice are working on a calamity emergency system for hurricanes in Central America. Natuurmonumenten, the major Dutch Nature Conservation NGO proposes natural climate buffers as a way to improve safety against floods and sea-level rise. These are only few examples of the projects that have been implemented by the organisations that take part of the Here campaign.

Our strategy: a co-ordinated consumer campaign
The environmental NGO’s that participate in the HERE campaign divided among each other the consumer options. The Netherlands Society for Nature and Environment has presented a top ten list of energy efficient products to choose from. The list includes fridges, TV’s, cars etcetera, see www.topten.info. The World Wide Fund for Nature introduced the most economical cars. Greenpeace calls up to buy energy efficient light bulbs. FOE Netherlands focuses on financial products. And finally the regional federations for nature and environment focus on climate neutral products.  The campaign doesn’t focus on green electricity, because this has been the focus of NGO campaigns for a number of years. One-third of Dutch households already has chosen for green electricity. Together these organisations developed a list of products for which the use of the HERE logo is allowed. Companies can easily join the campaign by using the HERE logo in the marketing of products on the list.  The consumer approach is starting to become successful. The business sector participation is growing. There is a visible growth in the number of efficient light bulbs that are being sold. The top-ten website is well visited. The concept climate neutral is starting to become well-known.

Our strategy: raising awareness
A number of projects focus on public awareness and public education. A specific project that needs to be mentioned is Nature’s Calendar. The Institute for Nature and Environment Education and the Dutch Association of City Farms will promote large scale participation of the so-called Nature Calendar, the Dutch Phenology Network. This program enables "citizen scientists" to get involved by recording annual natural processes like flowering times for selected plant species or breeding times for selected birds, and by reporting these dates to researchers. In the Netherlands over 3.000 people are involved and this number is rapidly growing. Nature’s Calendar generates a continuous stream of publicity on climate change, especially during extreme weather events like very hot days in winter or droughts in summer. Nature’s Calendar also offers significant opportunities for education and communications to gardeners and other specific target audiences. See for a similar initiatives in the UK.

The joint communications campaign
The joint communications project builds on these projects. The climate adaptation projects are key to convince the general public and decision makers that climate change is not an abstract long-term environmental problem, but more and more a major social problem, one that has impacts at home and all over the world. Building on this growing sense of urgency, the role of environment NGOs is to shoe consumers the right choices.
The joint campaign includes:

• A very successful event with al Gore at the launch of an inconvenient thruth
  
• A mass media campaign
  
• Field trips to Nepal, Central America and South Africa with celebrities to inform the public on the impacts of climate change on poor people
  
• A campaign focusing on primary schools. The first price was a concert by the most popular Dutch artist Ali B.
  
• daily weather programme that includes a climate item every day. Items are made by the Royal Dutch Meteorological Institute, Nature’s Calendar, the participating NGO’s and every week the action of the week
  
• Free publicity
  

Political lobby
Based on the growing public awareness raised by the campaign, the participating NGO’s started a political lobby in three areas: domestic emission reduction; a stronger role for natural climate buffers in Dutch climate adaptation policies; more financial support for climate adaptation in developing countries. The political lobby is very successful. The visit of al Gore and later Bill Clinton, the fact that NGO’s took their responsibility instead of just going for political asks contributed to a radical change in Dutch politics. Other factors that contributed to this was the unusual hot weather and the so-called energy transition initiative, a co-operation between the business sector (including all major energy-intensive companies), NGO’s and the government to approach climate change as a business opportunity instead of as a threat. Important results are the letter on climate change of our prime-minister together with Tony Blair to the EU Council and the new government declaration that supports the 30% ghg reduction in 2020 target and the 20% renewable energy in 2020 target.
Especially in the field of support for adaptation in developing countries the results are still limited. It took more time to get this started.

International relevance
The HERE Programme and campaign is intended to be internationally relevant:

• The chosen approach to include humanitarian and development organisations to raise the sense of urgency is innovative. Many of the participating NGO’s are part of international networks. This program will stimulate a more pro-active role of these organisations internationally;
  
• More than half of the projects take place in developing countries, especially the projects of development and humanitarian NGOs. They offer new opportunities for climate impact stories and climate ‘witnesses’;
  
• The communications approach is meant to be easily be copied in other countries;
  
• The Dutch Top Ten project for the most efficient products is part of an innovative international project to introduce Top Ten websites in ten European countries (see www.topten.info) and to create buyer’s groups like local authorities and banks. This international approach can create enough volume to transform markets;
  
• At least half of the compensation of climate neutral products will come from ‘gold standard’ CDM or VER projects.
  

Future
The HERE campaign is growing rapidly. More and more partners are getting involved. These include businesses, trade unions, other NGO’s, schools and local governments.
Co-operation is growing between NGO’s both in the field of adaptation and mitigation. Co-operation is focused both on practical results and on policy work.

The success of the HERE campaign led to a decision to formulate a new joint ambition. This ambition is to make one million Dutch consumers climate neutral. Climate neutral means a combination of emission reduction and compensation. There are a number of reasons for the choice of this target:

• No single NGO can achieve this on its own;
  
• This target makes participation by the Nature Conservation and development NGO’s that are part of our coalition much more interesting. They can take care of good compensation projects, like biogas installations, efficient cook stoves and solar home systems, re-plantation of mangrove forests (safety) and forest restoration projects. We also consider to include an avoided deforestation project;
  
• The message becomes more attractive: stop being part of the problem, be part of the solution and help the victims of climate change
  

The selected public campaign target is no alternative for political lobby in the areas described above. The lobby will of course go on and we expect that these two approaches will continue to reinforce each other.