National Council ironed out its failure to protect the climate

A flight ticket tax, more expensive gasoline, heating oil and gas, high targets for the CO_2nd– Reduction in Germany and a highly-funded climate fund – after failing at the first attempt, the National Council now brings a good CO_2ndLaw on the series.

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Climate protection in Switzerland has long been a bad star. In the first attempt to implement the Paris climate agreement in winter 2018, the National Council failed miserably by the bourgeois side reducing CO_2ndLaw hollowed out and the SVP then sank it along with the frustrated left-green side. Now – after alarming reports from climate research and protests by climate youth, after the FDP’s turnaround in environmental policy, the green elections and a new leader in the environmental department – everything is different. The National Council has a new CO and has been refined by the disgrace of its failure_2ndLaw that really deserves this name. The majority of the FDP maintained the new course. The Greens, who could have stood out after the election victory, held back so as not to overstretch the curve. And the SVP isolated itself from the start by refusing to do so and announcing the referendum as a precaution.

The result is a law that advances the implementation of climate protection in all areas and is at the same time socially and economically acceptable. Switzerland is now setting itself a domestic target that measures at least 75 percent of greenhouse gas emissions must be offset by domestic measures. It is hoped that the local economy will benefit. However, it is accepted that measures at home are more expensive and less effective than abroad. The previously spared traffic area will be taken into account with a surcharge on petrol and diesel of initially 10 and later a maximum of 12 centimes per liter. The incentive tax on fuels will also be increased to a maximum of CHF 210 per tonne of CO_2nd. It makes heating with oil and gas more expensive, but flows back to the population per capita and earmarked for the building program, so that a double lever is effective.

The National Council intends to do the same with a ticket charge of CHF 30 to CHF 120 per flight. It was not in the law for the first time and is now the political price that Left-Green demands. It is probably correct that levies on air traffic would be coordinated more systematically in a European or international network. But since all neighboring countries have introduced such a tax, the risk of alternative traffic at foreign airports is not too great. The airfare tax is also an incentive tax, which overburdens external costs with the polluter and half flows back to the population and the economy. This places excessive frequent flyers on them, while the vast majority of people get back more than they pay for. It affects short-haul flights, for which there are alternatives by rail. Half of the revenue goes to the climate fund, which is supposed to be a real innovation fund, from which, for example, the development of CO_2nd-neutral aviation fuel can be funded.

The law deviates from pure teaching in several areas, contains inconsistencies and sometimes even leaves the fifth. But overall it is easy to grip and should be able to be majority-owned from the left over the middle to the right. The National Council was aware that with the CO_2ndLaw must not fail a second time, and jumped over its shadow in many highly controversial points. He showed how cooperative law work works when it matters.