The Swiss rejected some taxes.<p>I think this is an important distinction compared to "climate change measures". The (very slim) majority may feel that such taxes are not the best way to deal with climate change, and support other ideas instead. There are a lot of politicians presenting the false choice of wealth redistribution or climate change apathy. There are other ways of looking at this, which I don't think are captured by framing it as them having rejected climate change measures.
* Swiss CO2 emissions (metric tons per capita): 4.17<p>* US CO2 emissions (metric tons per capita): 15.5<p>Switzerland is already among the lowest polluters in the EU and much lower than Australia/Canada/US. Just for context.
21 cantons (out of 26) voted against. Looking at the geographic distribution [1] it's evident support was narrowly concentrated to cities like Geneva, Zürich and Basel.<p>Conclusion: people who need their car on a daily basis think that gasoline is expensive enough at 6.492 USD/gallon [2] (as of June 7, when US drivers paid 3.399 USD/gallon according to the same site).<p>[1] <a href="https://www.bluewin.ch/de/news/schweiz/so-stimmt-deine-gemeinde-uebers-co2-gesetz-ab-751191.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.bluewin.ch/de/news/schweiz/so-stimmt-deine-gemei...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://www.globalpetrolprices.com/Switzerland/gasoline_prices/" rel="nofollow">https://www.globalpetrolprices.com/Switzerland/gasoline_pric...</a>
The proposed measures were not going far enough. Not by a long shot. For example, all (larger) companies were excluded from paying for CO2 emissions. Also, there were no measures targetting agriculture and food systems in general.<p>A big chunk of the revenues would have been used for a "climate fund" which is supposed to invest in tech climate solutions (whatever that means), and another chunk invested into health insurance. Another part would have been invested in renewables directly (which is great).<p>While one could argue that this would have been better than nothing, I hope that this rejection leads to a better proposal in the future which targets big polluters (although I don't think it will, one can still hope).
"Fighting" climate change on a national level like this is disingenuous. It is not going to accomplish anything.
There needs to be global agreements involving the biggest players. Else it is just a self inflicted penalty that accomplishes nothing.
A thirty-page law was rejected by the people because it apparently contained highly contentious parts. That is all that can be concluded from it. The Federal Council and parliament will now draft a new law that is less contentious. Journalists should first take a closer look at how the political system in Switzerland works before jumping to conclusions. The Swiss didn't reject climage change measures, just a contentious law. There are already a lot of measures in force besides this law.
The reference point for the Swiss national height network is 373.6 metres.<p>So they can somewhat ignore rising sea levels.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metres_above_the_Sea_(Switzerland)" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metres_above_the_Sea_(Switzerl...</a>
>car fuel levy, tax on air tickets.<p>Non of which would have done anything but raise prices for the aforementioned, it was just a swiss politicians hustle to try and tax citizens masqueraded as "climate measures".
This isn't that weird. People will always prefer avoiding short-term money losses than a danger they perceive as being "in the future". No one will ever win a referendum about levying taxes, no matter how important or just those are. That's why countries like Italy explicitly forbid referenda on economic matters.
Smart, in my opinion. Industrial producers are engaged in a massive and well-funded propaganda campaign aimed at distracting people from the fact the overwhelming majority of carbon emissions are from industrial and commercial sources. Even in a car-happy country like the US, personal vehicle use including commuting only makes up 16 percent of carbon emissions.
Is there a certain point where we say “it’s going to be worse case climate scenario, let’s prepare?”<p>I’m asking for a friend from a different planet …