The fact that with 51.6 and 61% respectively, the Swiss population defeated plans backed by special legislation for a CO2 tax and for a total ban of pesticides in referenda yesterday, implies, as Germany’s leading news weekly Der Spiegel reports, that for the time being, the Swiss government’s ambitions to make its country the first to ban pesticides, have been crushed. It remains a totally open question how Switzerland will now meet its promises signed at the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, the weekly says.
Germany’s state-run Deutsche Welle news agency tries to still push the illusion that things might be corrected sooner or later in Switzerland, quoting Swiss Environment Minister Simonetta Sommaruga as claiming that the referenda were “not a vote against climate protection,” that “the debates of the past weeks have shown that many people want to strengthen climate protection—just not with this legislation.” How new legislation would come about, however, as other media write, is yet rather uncertain, because government and parliament have worked on the defeated laws for several years.
