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Switzerland regrets COP27 going soft on top polluters

Switzerland regretted Sunday that the COP27 climate summit outcome does not impose obligations on the highest greenhouse gas polluters and said it would work to make sure they contribute properly.

Published: 20 November 2022 14:16 CET

COP27 climate conference in Egypt

Egypt's Foreign Minister Sameh Shukri, heads the closing session of the COP27 climate conference, at the Sharm el-Sheikh International Convention Centre in Egypt's Red Sea resort city of the same name, on 20th November, 2022. Photo by JOSEPH EID / AFP

A fraught UN gathering in Egypt wrapped up on Sunday with a landmark deal on funding to help vulnerable countries cope with devastating climate impacts — and deep disappointment over a failure to push further ambitions towards cutting emissions.

“The states have agreed on a work programme until 2026. However, this does not expressly oblige the countries with the highest greenhouse gas emissions,” said a statement from the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment.

“Switzerland regrets this decision and will work to ensure that these countries also make their contribution.

“A new fund has been set up for the most vulnerable countries to help them deal with the damage caused by climate change. Switzerland welcomes the additional aid in principle. Central questions about the fund still have to be clarified.”

Bern noted that no resolutions were passed on phasing out coal and reducing subsidies for oil and gas, saying “countries with the largest greenhouse gas emissions, such as China, India, Indonesia and Brazil, rejected a corresponding work programme and the obligation to implement plans”.

The final COP27 statement held the line on the aspirational goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

On the funding deal, “it remains unclear which countries should contribute to the fund, how the money will be distributed and who will manage the fund. Switzerland will work to ensure that these issues are clarified as quickly as possible,” Bern said.

READ MORE: REVEALED: How Switzerland’s glaciers have halved in size since 1931

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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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