Switzerland failed to protect its people from the devastating effects of climate change, Europe’s highest court ruled this week, according to Reuters.
Critics argued that the country did too little for the planet and acted as a business centre for some of the most powerful international corporations in the fossil fuel and mining industries.
Political analysts and academics also say entrenched conservatism and a political system governed by popular referendums will make reform challenging, even after Tuesday’s ruling by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
The court supported more than 2,000 Swiss women, a third of them over 75, who claimed that their country’s inaction in the face of rising temperatures put them at risk of death during heat waves.
The ruling cannot be appealed and the Swiss Federal Office of Justice, which represented the government in court, stated that it must be implemented. The office announced that it would analyse the decision to determine the measures the country needed to take.
Immediately after the court ruling, the leader of the Swiss Green Party Lisa Mazzone called for climate targets to be set for specific industries, including the financial sector.
People may have slightly beautiful dreams about Switzerland. Switzerland is the country of commodity trading, Switzerland is the country with a strong financial sector with a lot of investment in fossil fuels.
According to data released by industry association Suissenégoce, Swiss-based commodity trading companies account for 40 per cent of all oil trading and 60 per cent of metals trading business.
An international study of environmental sustainability in 2022 ranked Switzerland among the top 10 countries, but the government’s efforts to meet stricter climate targets have so far been limited to regular referendums held in the country.
The Swiss People’s Party argued that the country should withdraw from the Council of Europe, which seeks to promote human rights in Europe and beyond, calling the court’s judges “puppets for activists”.
Unlike most Western democracies, where central governments drive political change, Switzerland is governed by a cross-party consensus balancing the interests of its 26 cantons.
The ruling is also likely to increase environmental campaigners’ scrutiny of how Switzerland serves global industry through its network of merchants and banks. The financial sector, including the central bank, is already under pressure from environmental groups to limit the number of climate-damaging transactions it processes.
Data released last month by the Swiss National Bank (SNB) showed its investments were linked to 12 million metric tonnes of carbon emissions in 2023. Stakes in oil companies Chevron Corp and Exxon Mobil are part of its foreign exchange reserves, which stood at 655 billion Swiss francs ($738.28 billion) at the end of 2023.
The SNB stated that it was reducing its own carbon emissions but would not change its investment policy.
The actions Switzerland must take, according to the ruling, include revising its 2030 emission reduction targets to bring them in line with the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting warming to 1.5 Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels.
It also found that Switzerland had not met its own greenhouse gas reduction targets and had not set a national carbon budget. However, the country’s deep-rooted tradition of referendum would likely slow down the reform process, Pascal Mahon, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Neuchâtel, noted.
It’s not going to happen overnight. Switzerland is a country that respects international law rather well. Authorities will make sure to [respect] it, but by doing it through the Swiss political system, that’s still relatively slow and conservative.
