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The Swiss reject key climate change measures

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Re: The Swiss reject key climate change measures

#101

Post by alkonaut »

Glavnokoman wrote: post #100
alkonaut wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they don’t, you vote them out. You don’t get rid of politicians even with direct democracy. Politicians faced with inconsistent referendum results (not budget neutral) aren’t even able to deliver. If people got a chance to vote for lower taxes and increased government spending, they would. But who will deliver? A party that promises both those things would be considered crazy/populist (hopefully) and lose the elec…

You vote them out once in a while maybe if the herd does not forget being fooled. And their place is taken by the same sort. And why do you think the same people would vote differently for some crazy idea directly or via the party promoting that same thing?

> You vote them out once in a while maybe if the herd does not forget being fooled. And their place is taken by the same sort.

Again, referendums doesn't magically make politics and politicians disappear. It's a rather terrible instrument for governingf.

> why do you think the same people would vote differently for some crazy idea directly or via the party promoting that same thing?

The crazy idea isn't "Tax X". The idea is that parties create budgets and the budgets must be balanced. That is: you might have one party saying "We'd add tax X and fund program Y" and another party saying "We don't want spending proram Y because we don't want to raise taxes".

The "crazy idea" isn't Tax X or program Y. The crazy idea would be to have the cake and eat it: to have the increased spending and not the increased tax. Now, you can of course solve this in referendums too. You can ask people "Do you want program Y, funded by Tax X" and people can say yes or no. The problem with this is, that it snowballs very quickly. Every expenditure ties into everything else because a state budget is extremely complex. A program might be a useless waste unless another program is also funded. And a tax might not cover an expense unless something else also happens (and so on and so forth). In the end, to get something that is possible (consistent) you would often get one big direct democracy vote: which budget do you want A or B or C? Which is fine! But who would create those options?

The least bad solution to that that i know of is: let people freely suggest these. Let them organize in groups and people can vote for their ideas as consistent sets of ideas such as "budgets".

Re: The Swiss reject key climate change measures

#102

Post by choeger »

rsj_hn wrote: post #73
choeger wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Underrated comment. While this shows how stupid it is to be radical in a country like Switzerland, it also implies a huge problem for the US to fulfill the Paris goal. Switzerland (and to some degree the rest of Europe) have mostly only the hard parts left, while the US can significantly reduce emissions with relatively simple measures (e.g., building standards). But that only postpones the really difficult reduction…

> it also implies a huge problem for the US to fulfill the Paris goal. There is simply no political consensus in the US to fulfill these goals, so it's not really a problem at all for most people. It's been strange how many people just assume that the climate debate is over and that they have convinced the population that serious efforts must be made. Then when this stuff is put to a vote, they are always shocked tha…

The EU has decided to be carbon neutral by 2050. That doesn't mean they will succeed, of course, but it's still somewhat bold to claim "no country will".

Also the USA have reentered the Paris climate accords. So at least the current government commits to decarbonisation.

I think there will be a significant problem for free trade when some nations put effort into decarbonisation and others do not and continue to use cheap energy. I do not, for instance, think that the EU will simply roll over and let relatively cheap US products flood the market when their own companies are not competitive anymore.

Re: The Swiss reject key climate change measures

#103

Post by qalmakka »

This isn't that weird. People will always prefer avoiding short-term money losses than a danger they perceive as being "in the future". No one will ever win a referendum about levying taxes, no matter how important or just those are. That's why countries like Italy explicitly forbid referenda on economic matters.

Re: The Swiss reject key climate change measures

#104

Post by lasftew »

Barrin92 wrote: post #36
thysultan wrote: post #27

>car fuel levy, tax on air tickets. Non of which would have done anything but raise prices for the aforementioned, it was just a swiss politicians hustle to try and tax citizens masqueraded as "climate measures".

>Non of which would have done anything but raise prices for the aforementioned .. which is the entire point? The increase in prices internalizes the cost of pollution. Putting a price on carbon is the most straightforward and economically sensible way to incentivize reducing emissions.

There are ways to implement such a scheme in a way that does not increase the overall tax quota, by either reducing other taxes (VAT, income tax) or directly giving back to the people (tax credits).

One key argument of opponents of the proposed law was indeed that it would have resulted in an overall tax increase, with a lot of money being channelled into a dedicated "green innovation fund", outside of regular parliamentary control.

Unsurprising, many MPs on the pro side were affiliated with the "clean tech" and construction industries, who would have received most of that money.

Re: The Swiss reject key climate change measures

#105

Post by noxer »

qalmakka wrote: post #103

This isn't that weird. People will always prefer avoiding short-term money losses than a danger they perceive as being "in the future". No one will ever win a referendum about levying taxes, no matter how important or just those are. That's why countries like Italy explicitly forbid referenda on economic matters.

This directly contradicts the fact that they voted against an additional mandatory week of holidays back in 2012. The consensus was that people did not want the short term benefit of more holidays for log term harm to small business who cant afford to give people more paid holidays.

I think you are grossly underestimating the voting population. They are supposed to vote for whats best for the country not for themself. The main problem the Swiss system has is dis/misinformation not people being selfish. Every other political system has this problem too but the Swiss system depends more on a well informed populace than other systems.

Re: The Swiss reject key climate change measures

#106

Post by noxer »

soco wrote: post #99
T-A wrote: post #84

21 cantons (out of 26) voted against. Looking at the geographic distribution [1] it's evident support was narrowly concentrated to cities like Geneva, Zürich and Basel. Conclusion: people who need their car on a daily basis think that gasoline is expensive enough at 6.492 USD/gallon [2] (as of June 7, when US drivers paid 3.399 USD/gallon according to the same site). [1] https://www.bluewin.ch/de/news/schweiz/so-stim…

When asked to choose between a slightly emptier wallet today and a desertified country in a few decades, the choice is incredibly obvious to make: leave my wallet alone!

>desertified country

You should probably look up Switzerland on a map. Its where central Europe fresh water comes from.

Re: The Swiss reject key climate change measures

#107

Post by noxer »

soco wrote: post #98
mustafa_pasi wrote: post #12

"Fighting" climate change on a national level like this is disingenuous. It is not going to accomplish anything. There needs to be global agreements involving the biggest players. Else it is just a self inflicted penalty that accomplishes nothing.

If there only was some international treaty for everybody to bind, maybe if we signed it in Paris...

Its not global and it doesn't solve the problem it just make rich counties move most of their pollution to another place and cause more pollution in the end to avoid pollution taxes.

Re: The Swiss reject key climate change measures

#108

Post by noxer »

rcMgD2BwE72F wrote: post #38
thysultan wrote: post #27

>car fuel levy, tax on air tickets. Non of which would have done anything but raise prices for the aforementioned, it was just a swiss politicians hustle to try and tax citizens masqueraded as "climate measures".

Taxing airlines tickets could reduce the demand for flying (especially in Europe), unless people have infinite money. How can this not help curb climate change?

You mean slow down by an probably insignificant amount? Like back to a few year ago levels. All while the combined rest of the world increases pollution? No one can seriously thinks this would make a change.

China's additional pollution in the last years is more than what the entire west has reduces in the same time. And we will not go back in time and stop flying and stop being mobile. The only way forward is trough superior tech which if it actually is superiors will also be cheaper and replace the old tech on its own. No artificial incentives needed. Instead we should pour that money into funding research because researching while being profitable simply takes way way longer to achieve the same.

Re: The Swiss reject key climate change measures

#109

Post by Glavnokoman »

alkonaut wrote: post #101
Glavnokoman wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You vote them out once in a while maybe if the herd does not forget being fooled. And their place is taken by the same sort. And why do you think the same people would vote differently for some crazy idea directly or via the party promoting that same thing?

> You vote them out once in a while maybe if the herd does not forget being fooled. And their place is taken by the same sort. Again, referendums doesn't magically make politics and politicians disappear. It's a rather terrible instrument for governingf. > why do you think the same people would vote differently for some crazy idea directly or via the party promoting that same thing? The crazy idea isn't "Tax X". The…

We are not talking about eliminating politicians. You said the direct democracy is worse than some other, perhaps representative. I asked why and you keep repeating because it is bad. Sorry I just stop here.

Re: The Swiss reject key climate change measures

#110

Post by wdroz »

noxer wrote: post #105
qalmakka wrote: post #103

This isn't that weird. People will always prefer avoiding short-term money losses than a danger they perceive as being "in the future". No one will ever win a referendum about levying taxes, no matter how important or just those are. That's why countries like Italy explicitly forbid referenda on economic matters.

This directly contradicts the fact that they voted against an additional mandatory week of holidays back in 2012. The consensus was that people did not want the short term benefit of more holidays for log term harm to small business who cant afford to give people more paid holidays. I think you are grossly underestimating the voting population. They are supposed to vote for whats best for the country not for themself…

> This directly contradicts the fact that they voted against an additional mandatory week of holidays back in 2012

I agree with the argument, but to nitpick:

That was two additional weeks (from 4 to 6 weeks). I'm sure only 1 additional week would have succeed as a lot of employers are already giving 5 weeks.

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