Swiss look set to back new climate law

GENEVA — The Swiss, feeling the impact of global warming on their rapidly melting glaciers, on Sunday backed a new climate bill aimed at steering the country toward carbon neutrality by 2050, according to early estimates.

Initial projections from pollster gfs.bern institute showed that 58 percent of Swiss voters had said "yes" in the referendum on the new law, which would require Switzerland to slash its dependence on imported oil and gas, scaling up the development and use of greener and more homegrown alternatives.

Voters also appeared to have overwhelmingly backed adopting a global minimum tax rate of 15 percent for multinational corporations, with 79 percent voting in favor, according to the projections published shortly after polls closed at noon.

Recent opinion polls had indicated strong but slipping support for the climate bill, amid an anxiety-infused campaign around electricity shortages and economic ruin driven by the right-wing Swiss People's Party, or SVP.

The proposed Federal Act on Climate Protection Targets, Innovation and Strengthening Energy Security is needed to ensure energy security, supporters said.

It will also help address the ravages of climate change, highlighted by the dramatic melting of glaciers in the Swiss Alps, which lost one-third of their ice volume between 2001 and 2022, they said.

Switzerland imports about 75 percent of its energy, with all the oil and natural gas consumed coming from abroad.

Friendly alternatives

Climate activists had initially wanted to push for a total ban on all oil and gas consumption in Switzerland by 2050.

However, the government balked at the so-called Glacier Initiative, drawing up a counterproposal that scrapped the idea of a ban but included other elements.

The text promises financial support of 2 billion Swiss francs ($2.2 billion) over 10 years to promote the replacement of gas or oil heating systems with climate-friendly alternatives, as well as aid to push businesses toward green innovation.

Nearly all of Switzerland's major parties support the bill, except the SVP, the country's largest party, which triggered the referendum against what it dismisses as the "electricity-wasting law".

The SVP says the bill's goal of achieving climate neutrality in a little more than 25 years would effectively mean a fossil fuel ban, which it says would threaten energy access and send household electricity bills soaring.

SVP leader Marco Chiesa last month criticized the "utopian" vision behind the bill, saying it would drive up energy costs by $448 billion, while having basically "no impact" on the global climate.

In April, the World Meteorological Organization said the melting of the Alpine glaciers would have an economic impact in both the short term — such as natural disasters and a loss of tourism revenue — and in the longer term, as they are key water supply sources to rivers and hydroelectric power plants.

Agencies Via Xinhua