Citizens' Dialogue online in the Netherlands with the Executive Vice-President Frans Timmermans

In the context of the European Green Deal and the EU Climate Pact, the Mayor of Rotterdam Ahmed Aboutaleb, and Executive Vice-President Frans Timmermans took part in a dialogue with young people about the challenges, possibilities and worries that are caused by the climate transition.

The goals of the online event were talking about where the young people think the focus in policymaking around the climate transition should be placed on and which role young people can have in the transition.

From the dialogue, it became obvious that young people are highly involved in the climate crisis and transition. Several critical and substantial questions were raised for the speakers to be answered on themes such as: climate migration, inclusivity of the climate adaption and the development of a European train network.

Besides this, there were discussions on how the speakers would experience the climate crisis if they were young now and whether climate action should be taken on local, national and European level.

Timmermans and Aboutaleb talked about how flexible the young generation is in dealing with change and how important young people are for the European Green Deal. Aboutaleb also stated that everyone should be able to participate in the climate transition, nobody should be excluded, regardless of their income or age.

The Mayor also talked about various initiatives around the climate adaption that have been taken in Rotterdam and its port.