Switzerland Today

Greetings from Bern,

Residents from Brienz woke up this morning breathing a sigh of relief, at least for now. A large section of crumbling mountain broke off around midnight narrowly missing the evacuated village. Has the village averted a worst-case scenario or could there be more to come?

© Keystone / Gian Ehrenzeller

In the news: Swiss cyclist Gino Mäder has died after a harrowing crash in the Tour de Suisse.

• Swiss cyclist Gino Mäder, 26, died in the hospital after crashing at the end of stage five of the Tour de Suisse race, his team said on Friday. The public prosecutor’s office and the Graubünden cantonal police are investigating and looking for any video footage of the crash.
• The Swiss government is taking a wait and see approach on the European Union’s plan to set up a carbon border tax, aimed at stopping countries relocating production to places with weaker climate rules. They said that the carbon border tax posed “regulatory and economic risks” and preferred to see how implementation works in the EU.
• A Swiss court has convicted four security guards who worked at a federal asylum centre for endangering an asylum seeker’s life. This is prompting questions about the use of private security guards in federal centres.
• “Traditional, surprising, diverse” – this is the motto of the 31st Federal Yodeling Festival, which started in Zug today. The festival was cancelled two years in a row due to the pandemic.

© Keystone / Michael Buholzer

Deep sigh of relief for Brienz but is the worst really over?

“It was a long night, but it was a good night: Brienz was lucky,” said Christian Garmann, spokesperson for the local city council. Just over a month after 84 residents from the village of Brienz were evacuated, the rocks started rolling.

For those hoping to see the action, they were out of luck because it all happened in the middle of the night so the screens were pitch black. The only evidence of when the landslide happened was the sound of tumbling rocks.

Is the worst over? According to experts, residents will have to wait a bit longer because rain could cause mudslides and there are still more tests to do to see if more debris could fall but there’s a “very high chance” that they should be able to go back home.

The photos show just how close the rocks came to the village. Could you move back home to a village that came so close to disappearing?

© Keystone / Jean-christophe Bott

Greenwashing on the ski piste. Could a crackdown be on the way?

What better way to enjoy a ski holiday than with some fresh powder and a clean climate conscience. Apparently, that’s what the Engadin St. Moritz Mountains company thought as well when it claimed to offer CO₂-neutral skiing and snowboardingExternal link.

Some things might be too good to be true, at least for now. As Swiss public television SRF reported, the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs sent a “scathing letter” to the company, which owns the Corviglia ski resort, in which it reprimanded the company and asked it to refrain from using the term climate neutrality.

The mountain railways stated that they used environmentally friendly diesel for their snow grooming and climate-friendly oil to heat the mountain huts. In addition, they produced the artificial snow in a CO₂-neutral manner.

Not only are these fuels by no way harmless, the company also forgot about the huge environment footprint of traveling to the resort. And, given St. Moritz is known for attracting celebrities like King Charles, Kate Moss, and Robert De Niro, there’s a good chance some traveled by private jet, which isn’t exactly the most sustainable travel option.