Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Switzerland faces landmark climate-human rights ruling

swissinfo.ch

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 99 posts

Re: Switzerland faces landmark climate-human rights ruling

#21

Post by js8 »

api wrote: post #12
thegrim000 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious if countries like China, India, and Russia, have similar lawsuits and similar initiatives to reduce their emissions. I can't recall ever seeing a single story.

Russia is in full scale climate denial. China is building a lot of solar, wind, and nuclear but still also building coal. Don’t know about India but it seems the answer is mostly no. I’ve always argued that if we can’t make non carbon emitting sources cheaper than coal and gas (full load leveled cost) and dispatchable (batteries) we have no hope of cutting emissions and everything else is theater. Right now it seems…

Last year, China built roughly 4 times more renewables than coal. They argue that they build coal because renewables are unreliable, but surprisingly it was hydro what was unreliable (thanks to droughts brought by climate change), not solar and wind, as people are led to believe. Personally, I think China still building coal is organizational inertia more than anything.

Anyway, there was an article here that also claimed 80% energy investments in the U.S. are renewables. Isn't this 4:1 ratio interesting? Doesn't this tell you that (despite the noise), both China and US are on a very similar path?

Re: Switzerland faces landmark climate-human rights ruling

#22

Post by TheGeminon »

IAMMidway wrote: post #13
Y-bar wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is that a relevant take-away? Are you saying that not a singe physicist agrees that "[…] the current climate targets and measures are not sufficient to limit global warming to a safe level."?

Becaus it shows the ECHR is not a serious institution if PR-tricks like using "seniors" to bring forth your case helps you win. The ECHR needs to be abolished and Switzerland needs to leave this court.

So this would be a worthwhile case if a youthful physicist was bringing the complaint?

As per the article, they are arguing that seniors are particularly affected by climate change due to heat waves, and these are causing deaths.

The 2022 heatwaves had hundreds of deaths attributed to climate change in Switzerland: https://lenews.ch/2023/07/08/climate-change-behind-60-percen...

Re: Switzerland faces landmark climate-human rights ruling

#23

Post by ClumsyPilot »

bschne wrote: post #5

I am Swiss, and I think we should contribute as much as we possibly can, despite being a relatively small country without too much direct global impact. But I'm curious about the legal technicalities here (because IANAL): You can surely argue for a country having to better protect its own citizens through e.g. adaptations, but no matter how you look at it I don't think Swiss emissions can reasonably be viewed as a pr…

You are thinking around it the wrong way round

If you lead on climate change, you export solutions to other countries - for example how china is exporting Solar panels. We could have been exporting power grid planning expertise, wind turbine tech, etc. unfortunately now that ship has sailed as China has invested billions and were chose to dither and delay. That’s the price of fucking about

Re: Switzerland faces landmark climate-human rights ruling

#24

Post by Rochus »

hubraumhugo wrote: post #16

Switzerland was the most participatory democratic country in the world in 2023[0] and Swiss voters rejected a stricter CO2 law last year[1]. This court ruling seems quite perplexing then, doesn't it? [0] https://www.v-dem.net/data/the-v-dem-dataset/ [1] https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/business/switzerland-votes-on-c...

In every democracy there are people who are not satisfied with referendum results. Most come to terms with it because they still have confidence in the democratic system, and a few, often driven by lobyists, try instead to impose their will on the majority through some kind of bureaucratic trickery. In this case, it is interesting to see who is actually behind this: https://www.greenpeace.ch/de/erkunden/klima/klimagerechtigke...

Re: Switzerland faces landmark climate-human rights ruling

#25

Post by TheGeminon »

hubraumhugo wrote: post #16

Switzerland was the most participatory democratic country in the world in 2023[0] and Swiss voters rejected a stricter CO2 law last year[1]. This court ruling seems quite perplexing then, doesn't it? [0] https://www.v-dem.net/data/the-v-dem-dataset/ [1] https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/business/switzerland-votes-on-c...

Democracies are more than capable of passing laws that violate the rights of minorities.

Re: Switzerland faces landmark climate-human rights ruling

#26

Post by bojan »

hubraumhugo wrote: post #16

Switzerland was the most participatory democratic country in the world in 2023[0] and Swiss voters rejected a stricter CO2 law last year[1]. This court ruling seems quite perplexing then, doesn't it? [0] https://www.v-dem.net/data/the-v-dem-dataset/ [1] https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/business/switzerland-votes-on-c...

What does it matter? The laws upon which this ruling was based do not, and should not, care for current political trends.

Re: Switzerland faces landmark climate-human rights ruling

#27

Post by [deleted] »

hubraumhugo wrote: post #16

Switzerland was the most participatory democratic country in the world in 2023[0] and Swiss voters rejected a stricter CO2 law last year[1]. This court ruling seems quite perplexing then, doesn't it? [0] https://www.v-dem.net/data/the-v-dem-dataset/ [1] https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/business/switzerland-votes-on-c...

[deleted]

Re: Switzerland faces landmark climate-human rights ruling

#28

Post by bschne »

Y-bar wrote: post #11
bschne wrote: post #5

I am Swiss, and I think we should contribute as much as we possibly can, despite being a relatively small country without too much direct global impact. But I'm curious about the legal technicalities here (because IANAL): You can surely argue for a country having to better protect its own citizens through e.g. adaptations, but no matter how you look at it I don't think Swiss emissions can reasonably be viewed as a pr…

Another way to look at it is that if everyone was like Switzerland the CO2 (equiv.) emissions per capita would still rise and continue to cause climate change and injury. Also, Switzerland has increased their consumption-based emissions by over 38% since 1990 while in the same time frame countries like France has reduced by 15%, Germany reduced by 30%, UK reduced by 23%, EU27 reduced by 20%.

Sure, again, I think we should do better! I am merely wondering about the legal viewpoint on this because of causal connections between Swiss actions and the outcome for Swiss citizens, which are a lot more murky here than if e.g. our government would randomly imprison dissenters or something like that.

Re: Switzerland faces landmark climate-human rights ruling

#29

Post by Aachen »

hubraumhugo wrote: post #16

Switzerland was the most participatory democratic country in the world in 2023[0] and Swiss voters rejected a stricter CO2 law last year[1]. This court ruling seems quite perplexing then, doesn't it? [0] https://www.v-dem.net/data/the-v-dem-dataset/ [1] https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/business/switzerland-votes-on-c...

If people would vote for what is good for them, the outcomes would look quote different. My father says he votes one party because of the financial aspect and laughs at me for voting a different party. The most recent election's plans showed, when vetted by an independent buro (I think it's a government agency), that this party's plans would be much better for basically every income group, and equally good for the top 10%, compared to the party my dad votes for. Do you think that sways him in the slightest? He's a well-educated high-income individual that reads a lot and stays current, who I'd have expected to have rational voting behavior if anyone has that.

Most people vote for parties whose plans don't match what they say they'll accomplish, such as lower taxes or whatever else they believe will be good for them. A greater percentage of naturalised immigrants than those with local heritage voting for the one party wanting to stop immigration and abolish religious freedoms, that sort of thing.

If someone has a better study on this, I'd be much interested, but that a court (in applying fundamental rights made up by people whose elected job it is to care for a country) disagrees with the average person on the street is not surprising to me

Re: Switzerland faces landmark climate-human rights ruling

#30

Post by ClumsyPilot »

thegrim000 wrote: post #10
bschne wrote: post #5

I am Swiss, and I think we should contribute as much as we possibly can, despite being a relatively small country without too much direct global impact. But I'm curious about the legal technicalities here (because IANAL): You can surely argue for a country having to better protect its own citizens through e.g. adaptations, but no matter how you look at it I don't think Swiss emissions can reasonably be viewed as a pr…

I'm curious if countries like China, India, and Russia, have similar lawsuits and similar initiatives to reduce their emissions. I can't recall ever seeing a single story.

This finger pointing is absolutely ridiculous!

China has installed more renewables than the rest of the world combined. They will have zero emissions grid before US or even Western European countries like Britain. Most nuclear reactors in the world are being built in China as well.

What will we do when China produces all the world’s batteries, solar panels and electric cars? Will we slide into irrelevance?

Why am I asking, we already know what we will do! EU has moved to introduce tariffs on Chinese electric cars because they are too cheap! Our course of action is economically suicidal

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-03-06/eu-moves-...

Post reply on HN