Tag Archives: environment

Let me state from the outset, you won’t get a discount if you mention to your travel agent that you read this article when you book your trip to Switzerland this summer. But it will be nice to have you back; Switzerland – in line with much of Europe – is planning to open up to overseas visitors in a few short weeks. And since we haven’t seen you in a while, I expect you’ll be welcomed with open arms! I can assure you, the place hasn’t changed much. Of course, we have...

With five weeks to go before Swiss vote on two initiatives aimed at drastically cutting the use of pesticides, more than 50% appear to be in favour of both initiatives, according to RTS. © Dusan Kostic | Dreamstime.comOne of these initiatives, the clean drinking water initiative, aims to tie access to Switzerland’s generous farm subsidies to forgoing pesticide (and antibiotic) use. The second aims to ban the use of synthetic pesticide use more broadly after a 10 year...

Opponents argue that the anti-pesticide initiatives will harm Switzerland’s agriculture sector and undermine the country’s self-sufficiency. Anthony Anex/Keystone The director of the leading Swiss farmers’ organisation is deeply concerned about two initiatives to ban pesticide. Martin Rufer explains what voters’ approval would mean for Switzerland’s agriculture. The two proposals, to come to a nationwide ballot on June 13, are causing heated debates and have not only...

Every year, Swiss tax payers contribute CHF 5.4 million to the promotion and marketing of Swiss meat. © Tyler Olson | Dreamstime.comThe money is paid to Proviande, a meat industry association, and it is used to promote and market meat produced in Switzerland. For environmentalists, using public funds to promote and advertise an environmentally damaging product makes no sense. Meat production has a large carbon footprint, and average meat consumption in Switzerland, at around 50 kg per...

British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, at a farm in Wales in 2019, where he was canvassing support for his post-Brexit farming policy. Afp Or Licensors Britain argues that Brexit will make British agriculture greener. SWI Swissinfo.ch looks at how successful EU agricultural policies have been, and how they compare with Switzerland’s approach. One of the arguments Brexiters pushed forward was that the United Kingdom would be greener after Brexit. They argued hefty...

On 1 January 2021, Swiss pump prices are set to rise by 3.7 cents per litre. © Frischschoggi | Dreamstime.comFrom 1 January 2021, the total taxes on a litre of petrol and diesel in Switzerland will be 77 and 80 cents respectively. At a price of CHF 1.50 litre, taxes will make up over half the price of a litre of fuel in Switzerland. The 3.7 cent tax hike, which is set to run until 2028, was adopted by the Federal Council on 1 July 2020. The increase aims to allow the government to...

Have the Swiss and European Union economies already been through the worst, or will the pandemic cause more damage in 2021? Keystone / Martin Ruetschi Lockdown, home office, travel bans. The pandemic has shaken up the economy, but its disruptive power is having a selective effect. While the pharmaceutical industry is sailing through the crisis unscathed, the watch industry is being hit harder than any time since the last world war. What is the future of...

Reliance on fossil fuels is putting the planet under increasing pressure. Keystone / Larry W. Smith The latest United Nations Human Development Report has found that countries, including Switzerland, still struggle to achieve high levels of human development without straining the planet. My specialty is telling stories, and decoding what happens in Switzerland and the world from accumulated data and statistics. An expatriate in Switzerland for several years, I...

[caption id="attachment_603925" align="alignleft" width="400"] About 3-5% of the investments of 180 Swiss financial institutions taking part in a government climate compatibility test flow into fossil energies like oil, gas and coal, according to a new report Keystone / Larry Mayer[/caption] Swiss banks and retirement funds are still investing enormous sums in fossil fuel companies and thereby contributing to global warming. This is the conclusion of a...

In an NBER working paper, Geoffrey Heal discusses some aspects of the energy transition to come. On infrastructure investments: the likely net investment required to go carbon-free is now as little as $0.179 trillion renewable power from wind and solar PV plants is now less expensive than power from gas, coal or nuclear plants … If it were not for the intermittency of renewables, we would save money by converting to clean power. the social benefits from stopping the CO2 emissions...