Despite co-hosting a milestone climate conference, the Netherlands has left the Dutch Caribbean islands alone in their fight against climate change.
"When we arrived in Bonaire, you could really feel the anger," said Paolo Destilo, a member of the Climate Justice Flotilla. The Dutch-Italian activist sat on a sandy beach in Santa Marta, Colombia, as the flotilla's sailboats bobbed in the sea behind him. "Everybody was really mad that the Dutch government was actually fighting an appeal".
The appeal Destilo was referring to came several weeks earlier, when the Dutch government challenged a historic court ruling that stated that the Netherlands had violated the human rights of the citizens of Bonaire, a special municipality of the Netherlands located off Venezuela's coast. The court ruled that the state was not taking sufficient measures to protect residents from the impacts of climate change, as well as discriminating against the island by not making dedicated climate mitigation plans. The ruling ordered the Dutch government to set binding targets for Bonaire to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
In addition to Bonaire, the flotilla passed through Sint Maarten, Curaçao and Aruba, all small island countries belonging to the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The flotilla's last stop was Santa Marta, the site of a landmark climate conference dedicated to the transition away from fossil fuels. Though set in Colombia, the conference was co-hosted by the Dutch government.
This irony was not lost on the flotilla's crew, many of whom were citizens of Dutch islands who had sailed to the conference in order to highlight climate injustices in the Dutch Caribbean.