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HEATWAVE

Water flown in by helicopter: How Switzerland has been hit by drought

Parts of Switzerland will get some much-needed rain in the coming days. But will that be enough to fix the current drought situation?

Published: 17 August 2022 10:11 CEST
Updated: 20 August 2022 10:09 CEST
Water flown in by helicopter: How Switzerland has been hit by drought
This photograph taken on July 22, 2022, shows the dried out bed of the Lac des Brenets' part of the Doubs river, a natural border between eastern France and western Switzerland. (Photo by Fabrice COFFRINI / AFP)

Switzerland is drying up. Extreme heat, with the alpine country going through one of the hottest summers in history, and prolonged drought are transforming the landscape in Switzerland and making authorities take somewhat drastic measures to combat the effects of the climate crisis.

Pastures are in danger of dying in the Alps, so the Swiss army is airlifting water for the cows using helicopters – a measure that has been taken before and should become more common as temperatures rise.

The long dry spell has also impacted Switzerland’s production of milk and cheese, as The Local reported. While some cantons opted to fly water up the Alps, others, such as Vaud, are bringing their cattle to lower ground earlier than usual.

The situation is similarly dire in the canton of Fribourg, where the famous Gruyère cheese has been produced for centuries.

READ ALSO: ‘Don’t sleep naked’: How to get a good night’s sleep in a Swiss heatwave

“The situation is tense, even critical”, according to Frédéric Ménétrey, director of the Fribourg Chamber of Agriculture, who said that 15 alpine pastures that are inaccessible by road are being supplied by private helicopters.

With a “lack of water and dry grass”, milk production could be reduced by “20 to 30 percent”, Said Dominique de Buman, president of the Fribourg Cooperative of Alpine Cheese Producers.

Different trails and views

Some classic Swiss hiking routes had to be closed off as warmer temperatures speed up glacier melt, making them full of hazards like falling rocks released from the ice. Once green mountains are becoming arider, transforming Switzerland into Tuscany.

The transformations will have a significant effect on a country with a tourism industry heavily dependent on winter and skiing. Some cantons have covered glaciers to protect them from melting – again, not a new measure, but one that should become more necessary in the future.

The arid look extends to the famous Swiss lakes, with many of them at historic low points this season. Rivers are also low on water, exposing banks and creating dry islands. Even from one year to another, the change is evident:

As water temperatures rise, fish are also in danger. The Swiss Fisheries Federation (SPF) has warned of fish deaths in “historic proportions” nationwide due to persistent heat and high exploitation of rivers for electricity generation.

In Schaffhausen, authorities have fished out stocks and brought them to cooler zones, as hot water temperatures can be deadly for the animals.

The risk of forest fires is also extremely high, with the entire country currently in danger of wildfires, as The Local reported. The risk is higher in the south of Switzerland.

READ ALSO: MAP: The Swiss regions in danger of wildfires and the measures in place to avoid them

Rain prospects offer little hope

The weather is about to change this week in Switzerland, Meteonews reports.

While some areas of Switzerland have been hit by thunderstorms in the past days, providing some relief for agriculture and nature in general, the amount of rain has not been sufficient to counteract the effects of the drought that has impacted much of the country.

However, as rainfall is expected in much of the country, there could be some relief – though “it would take several weeks of almost daily rain to see a real and lasting improvement”, meteorologist Vincent Devantay said.

The rain will also bring in “much cooler temperatures”, but the summer weather will come back from Sunday, “with increasingly warm temperatures and no clear deterioration is in sight for the future”.

READ ALSO: Switzerland to get rain this week — at last

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CLIMATE CRISIS

Who are Switzerland’s victorious climate ‘Elders’?

The Swiss women's association Elders for Climate Protection secured a historic win Tuesday when Europe's top rights court faulted Switzerland for not doing enough to tackle global warming.

Published: 10 April 2024 09:06 CEST
Who are Switzerland's victorious climate 'Elders'?

Here are some facts about the group of Swiss seniors who helped secure the European Court of Human Rights’ first-ever condemnation of a country for failing to take action against climate change.

Over 64 

In August 2016 a small group of women above retirement age who had bonded over concerns about climate change created the association to demand stronger action towards reaching the goals set by the 2015 Paris Agreement.

That agreement set targets for governments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, with the aim of preferably limiting warming to below global temperature rises to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

“If everyone acted as Switzerland is doing today, global warming of up to three degrees Celsius could occur by 2100,” the Elders for Climate Protection say on their website.

“Keeping it below 1.5 degrees is decisive to avert more serious threats to human rights.”

Today, the association says it counts more than 2,500 members — all women over the age of 64 who live in Switzerland.

Their average age is 73, it said.

“Elderly women are extremely vulnerable to the effects of heat,” the association said, explaining its membership criteria.

It does not meanwhile place the same restrictions on its some 1,200 supporters.

Long journey 

The organisation has been arguing for climate protection to be recognised as a human right, pointing out that the increasingly frequent and intense heatwaves it is causing “pose a real and serious risk to our lives and physical and mental health”.

But the lawsuits it brought in Switzerland were all thrown out.

After failing to get a hearing before Switzerland’s Supreme Court, the Elders for Climate Protection filed an appeal in 2020 with the European Court of Human Rights.

That court finally issued its verdict Tuesday, finding that the Swiss state had violated Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees the “right to respect for private and family life”.

The lawyer of the Swiss association, Cordelia Bahr, said the court had “established that climate protection was a human right”.

“It’s a huge victory for us and a legal precedent for all the states of the Council of Europe,” she said.

A librarian and a counsellor 

The association counts two co-presidents.

Anne Mahrer, a librarian from Geneva, has always been involved in environmental protection, first as part of the anti-nuclear movement in the 1970s, according to an annual listing of notable Swiss citizens published by the Illustré weekly.

She later got into politics, becoming a parliamentarian for the Green Party.

At her side is Rosmarie Wydler-Walti, who worked as an education and marriage counsellor in Basel.

As a young mother, she got involved in the environmental protection and feminist movements.

In a profile published by the Organisation of the Swiss Abroad, she said she felt moved to act after the “traumatising” Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986 and by a fire in a warehouse storing chemicals near Basel the same year.

Greenpeace support 

The Elders for Climate Protection has since the start enjoyed strong support from the Swiss chapter of Greenpeace, which among other things has stood as guarantor for its years of legal fees.

Since its creation in 2016, the association has raked up more than 122,000 francs in expenses, according to its website.

Tuesday’s verdict “is obviously a huge relief for the people who have been working on this case for years,” Greenpeace spokesman Mathias Schlegel told the Le Temps daily.

“It is a very emotional moment. I have even seen some of my colleagues in tears,” he said.

Greenpeace and the Elders for Climate Protection now plan to take their case to the International Court of Justice in The Hague, with hearings expected to begin early next year.

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