Greenpeace protesters climb crane near Swiss parliament

The Greenpeace activists unfurled a huge banner on May 13 in Bern with the words “Our planet has limits. Let us not blow them up”. © Keystone / Peter Klaunzer

Six Greenpeace activists climbed atop a construction crane near the federal parliament building in Bern on Saturday as part of an environmental protest action.

The activists unfurled a huge banner with the words “Our planet has limits. Let us not blow them up”.

Their protest action was aimed at drawing attention to Swiss Overshoot Day, a milestone when citizens have used up all available resources in a year. This year the day falls on May 13.

“By then humanity would have used up as much as our planet’s ecosystems can renew in the entire year, if all people consumed at the rate of Swiss residents. It would take the regenerative capacity of nearly three Earths to provide that much,” said the international think tank Global Footprint Network in a statementExternal link.

+ Swiss voters to decide on country’s energy transition

Greenpeace addedExternal link: “Environmental pollution within Switzerland has tended to decrease in recent years. But the import of goods and services has grown rapidly. This means that Switzerland causes a large part of the destruction of nature abroad.”

The environmental group says the government’s recent focus on personal energy consumption is “too short-sighted”.

+ Swiss climate official defends ‘robust’ national objectives

“Reducing personal energy consumption will not solve the environmental and climate crisis. Addressing the problems primarily at the individual level ignores the systemic and planetary dimensions of the crisis,” it went on.

Climate action

At least 130 of the 198External link United Nations countries have announced plans to be climate neutral by 2050 or, like China and Russia, by 2060. Together they account for about 90% of global emissions.

However, current commitments are not enough to limit global warming to 1.5°C, the most ambitious goal of the Paris climate agreement. No country is handling the climate crisis adequately, according to the Climate Change Performance Index 2023External link(CCPI),

Switzerland also wants to achieve climate neutrality by 2050. Under the terms of the Paris climate agreement, Switzerland has pledged to halve emissions by 2030. But the country narrowly missed its target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 despite coronavirus lockdowns and an unusually warm winter.

+ Switzerland’s ‘disappointing’ contribution to an emissions-free planet

The Alpine country was ranked 22nd in the CCPI’s 2023 climate performance ranking, down from 15th last year. The country must “improve its policies” and “accelerate their implementation”, according to the international experts.

The Climate Action Tracker (CAT), an independent group that analyses countries’ climate policies, found Switzerland’s action to be “insufficient”. If all countries acted like Switzerland, the earth’s temperature would increase by 2-3°C, the group warned.