Environmental responsibility initiative: the winners and losers speak

Opponents and supporters of the unsuccessful initiative explain the significance of the result to SWI swissinfo.ch.

On Sunday the Swiss electorate voted on the “environmental responsibility initiative” of the Young Greens. The polls had already indicated that the initiative would not win a majority.

In the end, 69.8% of Swiss voters rejected the initiative, which called for an ecological reorganisation of the economy within ten years. In an interview with SWI swissinfo.ch, Gaëlle Valterio from the Young Greens pointed out that their opponents had twice as many resources at their disposal for the referendum campaign.

Does the result have any significance for future climate and environmental policy?

For Geneva parliamentarian Simone de Montmollin from the no camp, the result does not mean that Switzerland does not want to do more for the environment and climate. But according to de Montmollin, the initiative’s measures and timetable would have had “dramatic consequences”.

Bernese parliamentarian Katja Riem, who has observed a certain shift away from climate protection in the West, takes a different view. For Riem, Switzerland could “take a leaf out of that book”.

Of course, the unsuccessful initiators see things differently. Carlo Schmid, who worked for the environmental responsibility initiative, is calling for the government not to make any cuts in climate protection.

Turnout was relatively low at 37.9%.

Translated from German by DeepL/ts