Speech Roger Nordmann @Youth Forum Switzerland
@international School of Zug and Luzern ISZL (www.isz.ch) 17.1.2025
Session “Beyond the Tipping Point: How We Can Still Steer the Climate Future”
Ladies and gentlemen
Let me tell you about Switzerland’s climate protection strategy. But since this is a global problem, we first need to put it into perspective.
Above all, we need to clarify the central question: Why protect the climate?
There are good Arguments such as “protect nature and the landscape”, “protect biodiversity” or, for some, “protect the divine order” (I assure you, that’s not my personal perspective).
But all that isn’t the most important. What’s at stake is much more existential for humanity. It’s about protecting well-being, and giving those still living in extreme poverty the chance to enjoy good living conditions.
If we don’t act, huge areas such as central India and parts of Africa will become uninhabitable.
All human infrastructure along the coast will be destroyed.
All this would lead to hundreds of millions of human beings having to leave their homes for good and becoming climate refugees.
This brings me to my first assertion: letting the climate heat up will cost us dearly. And with the exception of the beautiful districts burning in Los Angeles, the poors will be hit harder, because they have fewer means to protect themselves.
To deal with a problem, we have to start by analyzing its causes. In the case of global warming, this is actually quite simple.
Three quarters of greenhouse gases are CO 2. Most of this is produced by burning fossil fuels, and a small proportion by making cement.
The remainder is nitrous oxide and methane, mainly from agriculture. But these other gases are less dangerous in the long term, as the molecules disintegrate within a few decades.
With our insane consumption of fossil fuels, in just a few decades we’re burning up materials that solar energy and photosynthesis took tens of millions of years to produce over the geological ages. In any case, it’s not sustainable.
Hence my second assertion: to protect the climate, we need to leave this fossil material in the ground. Since we need energy to live comfortably, the only sustainable solution is to make intelligent use of the flow of energy that reaches us daily from the sun and underground. And to do so efficiently.
This immediately raises the question of feasibility? Can we live on renewable energies?
Fortunately, we now have excellent technologies for transforming solar radiation, wind and waterpower into electricity.
We finally have effective and increasingly environmentally-friendly ways of storing electricity, notably in the form of batteries, but not only.
What’s more, we have another chance:
Electricity is incredibly efficient in its use. An electric car consumes 4 times less energy than a fossil car.
A heat pump consumes 4 times less energy than oil or gas heating.
Finally, it’s much cheaper to produce electricity from renewable energies than from coal or gas. Indeed, when electricity is produced from fossil fuels, 2/3 of the energy is lost in the form of heat. In other words, 3 kilowatt-hours of primary energy have to be extracted and transported in order to produce one kilowatt-hour of electricity. This is not efficient at all
You don’t believe that’s is feasible with renewable?
In 2013, wind and solar power only accounted for 2% of global electricity production.
Ten years later, in 2023, these sources of electricity already accounted for 13% of global production. Rapid progress!
And our efforts produce results:
We had 28% growth in CO2 emissions from 2003 to 2013, in the previous decade
This growth has been reduced to 7% from 2013 to 2023, i.e. over the last 10 years.
This is significant progress, even if we have not yet achieved the necessary reduction in CO2 emissions. This remarkable result has been achieved because more than 60 countries have already exceeded their historic peak in CO 2 emissions. Even Donald Trump won’t be able to get the US back up on its CO2 emissions peak.
I’d like to add a further note of optimism here. Over the past 40 years, the total number of births has stabilized. The demographic explosion is on the way to being brought under control, thanks to progress in education, especially girls’ education. And, as the UN clearly demonstrates, there is a synergy between human development goals and climate protection.
This brings me to the 3rd assertion. Humanity now has the technical tools. It is using them and making progress in the fight against global warming. As Obama said: “Yes we can”. So we need to invest in these technologies to replace the old ones. And in developing countries, we need to invest directly in modern technologies. Just as they invested in mobile phone without building conventional phone networks.
But will technology allow us to live happily and carefree in the best of all worlds?
Of course not. For several reasons.
Although the potential of renewable energies is huge, it’s not infinite. Other resources, starting with soil and minerals, are also limited. It is absolutely essential to limit inequalities and over-consumption by the richest people, otherwise resources will not be sufficient. This shows that taxation and solidarity are absolutely essential.
Secondly, our world is currently built on waste, and we’re going to have to invest massively to renew all our infrastructures. We need to redirect money form consumption to investments.
To express it an image: we’d rather buy an electric car and solar panels than fly 10 times to overseas for holidays.
Finally, technology doesn’t solve all problems. In aviation, cement or agriculture, we are a long way from technical solutions that can be applied at a broad scale. We’ll have to adapt our behavior accordingly.
On the other hand, without the best technologies, the crash is programmed. Humans will pounce on the remaining natural resources, including fossil fuels, burning them to the last drop.
This brings me to my 4th assertion: there is a strong synergy between changes in behavior and investments in technology. It’s wrong to pit one against the other. We need both investment und behavioral changes.
Let’s turn now to Switzerland.
It’s quite simple. Within its territory, Switzerland must act on the major blocks:
invest in buildings, to eliminate all fossil heating. This involves insulating buildings and using renewable sources of heating, in particular heat pumps.
We need to continue developing public transport and switch all road mobility to electric power.
We also need enough electricity to cover these new uses of electricity. This means investing in renewable power generation, but also strengthening storage facilities and the electricity grid.
We’ll need to support investment to decarbonize industry, which also means using more electricity and renewable gas. This gas will have to be produced with surplus summer electricity.
And one day we’ll have to decide to reduce our absurd consumption of aviation. Probably by inflating the price of plane tickets. And by improving rail services to Europe.
A brief aside on airplanes: since emissions take place at very high altitudes, they have a triple warming effect. That’s why air travel from Switzerland is as harmful as all the emissions from cars. Let me be clear: we need to seriously reduce our neurotic consumption of air travel. You don’t have to fly to Madrid or Stockholm to buy the latest H&M clothes that are only 5 minutes from your home.
As you can see, this is exactly what I was saying earlier. We’re going to have to invest a lot, and to do that we need a climate fund. And we also need to change certain individual behaviors.
Investing also means having confidence in the future, and giving ourselves the means to build that future.
And investing also means daring to go into debt. Just as you would go into debt to build a house. Because, in return, we’ll have laid the foundations for our future prosperity
On the opposite, Saving on future investments, means preparing the poverty of tomorrow.
This brings me to my 5th and last assertion: Switzerland faces the same challenges as the rest of the world. Switzerland is not an island, it’s part of the world. And like every other country, it must assume its responsibilities within its own borders.
Before concluding, a few words about Switzerland’s global responsibility.
We must act on the following 3 axes:
Firstly, we must continue to support international coordination efforts for climate protection
Secondly, we need to use the leverage provided by Switzerland as a financial center. Many investment decisions are made in Switzerland. We need to require multinationals to adopt plans to decarbonize their activities worldwide.
Thirdly, Switzerland must stop its tax predation. By tax dumping, we are depriving poorer countries of the resources they need for the climate transition. Given the investments involved, this is a selfish and irresponsible attitude. And it’s stupid, because we Swiss also need climate protection.
In the end, my conclusion is quite simple.
There are 2 extremes of behavior:
To despair and glue our hands to the asphalt, denouncing the apocalypse.
Or else
deny the climate problem.
In fact, both extreme attitudes lead to inaction.
In my opinion, there’s a rational path between these 2 extremes.
A path based on investment, individual responsibility. and solidarity, and that’s the one we have to take.