SWI swissinfo

Renewable energy production is just one of the aspects of the initiative. (Keystone) There is little dispute that the Swiss must reduce their ecological footprint, but the devil lies in the details. Voters will decide on Sunday whether there should be more govement intervention. If everyone lived like the Swiss 2.8 times worth the Earth’s resources would be used up every year. Put another way, we would need three planets instead of one. As part of the 2015 Paris climate accord, Switzerland has pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50% from 1990 levels by 2030 at the latest. The pledge is subject to parliamentary approval. And now, the Swiss are being asked to take a further step....

Switzerland is among the world leaders in recycling of glass and other material. But it also has a very high waste production proportional to its population (Keystone) Switzerland needs an economy that is based on the sustainable use of natural resources. An initiative by the Green Party wants to incorporate this into the country’s constitution, but opponents are convinced such a strategy is unrealistic. Voters have the final say at the ballot box on September 25. It is a fact that the consumption of natural resources worldwide has been exceeding the Earth’s capacity to regenerate itself since the 1980s. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) estimates that by 2050 the global ec...