Switzerland Today

Dear Swiss Abroad,

In Thursday’s briefing, we look at one unfortunate side effect of being rich – you’re also statistically more likely to have a bigger carbon footprint. First, all the news of the day.

Keystone / Alessandro Della Bella

In the news: Swiss diplomatic expansion in China under scrutiny.

• The Federal Audit Office has criticised renovation plans for the Swiss embassy in Beijing (pictured), saying the project does not currently meet criteria of economy and efficiency. The Swiss foreign ministry has rejected the criticisms. The project is currently on hold and also awaiting approval from Chinese authorities.
• UBS is set to decide in favour of keeping Credit Suisse’s domestic bank, but dropping the brand, ending months of speculation about the future of the business, Bloomberg reported today. Executives are preparing for an announcement as soon as the end of this month, unnamed sources told the news agency.
• Slightly more than three out of 100 Swiss people have been victims of a “hate crime”, i.e. a crime motivated by prejudice, a report said today. Insults were the most common type of assault. In 40.1% of the cases, the crime was based on origin; assaults based on gender and appearance were next most frequent.
• In 2022, Swiss gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 2.6% rather than the 2% previously thought, Swiss statisticians said today. Based on more comprehensive data, the figures for 2021 and 2020 have also been revised upwards, from +4.2% to +5.4% and -2.1% instead of -2.4% respectively.

© Keystone / Christian Beutler

Jet-setters: big carbon footprints.

Each year, the average Swiss spits out 15 tonnes of CO2 emissions, write newspapersExternal link from the Tamedia group today. But the figure is also misleading. A large amount of the emissions is not so much caused by the “average” waiter in canton Aargau, but rather the top brass: the richest 1% are responsible for 195 tonnes of emissions per person per year, 20 times more than what’s caused by low-income folk. Taken together, “the richest 10% damage the environment more than the poorest 50%”, the papers write, based on data from the World Inequality Lab in Paris.

What’s behind this? Richer people are more likely to have a big car and house, many air miles, and even investments in polluting businesses, the Tages-Anzeiger says. Leaving aside the question of whether poor people would enjoy the exact same things if they were rich, this has naturally led to various left-wing ideas for progressive CO2 taxes, which would hit bigger polluters more. Such ideas would also mitigate the unfortunate fact that higher energy prices or blanket taxes disproportionately impact those with lower incomes.

But such ideas are often difficult to sell to voters and politicians, many of whom are wary of tinkering with trickle-down economics theory. It’s also tough to track individual CO2 footprints without big state intervention in the private sphere. The Swiss parliament will debate one such idea in the next few months, the Tages-Anzeiger writes – most likely after the October elections, which incidentally don’t look set to go so well for the Green Party.

Keystone / Salvatore Di Nolfi

More jet-powered fun: don’t try this at home.

The award for the most pointless accident of the week goes to a man in Geneva who got too close to the city’s iconic “Jet d’Eau” (photo) on Monday. In an informative live-action lesson in Newtonian physics, the man first put his head into the fountain, which sprays 500 litres of water per second 140 metres into the air at a speed of 200km/h. Not happy with the outcome – he was “catapulted” backwards, 20 MinutesExternal link wrote – the man then put his arm in, which led to him being thrown several metres into the air and ending up in the lake. He was fished out by police and brought to hospital. Once he’s back to health, he can look forward to legal proceedings involving the Geneva water authorities.