"Since our share of global greenhouse gas emissions is only one thousandth, our efforts would be doomed to remain insignificant. This argument expresses not a logical reasoning, but an attitude of defiance and denial," regrets René Longet, an expert in sustainable development.
The rejection, on March 8, of the proposal for a federal climate fund was spectacular and merciless. Five years ago, a climate law had already been rejected: it was then based on taxes. The climate fund promised, by contrast, subsidies. Neither the first nor the second method therefore found favor.
Weariness in the face of the climate issue is now evident. Contrary to the declarations of climate emergency adopted a few years ago by many political authorities, the idea is spreading that, since our share of global greenhouse gas emissions would be only one thousandth, our efforts are doomed to remain insignificant.
This argument does not express logical reasoning, but an attitude of defiance and denial. For in elections and referendums there is unanimity in saying that every vote counts. Yet if some refuse to act on the pretext that others would not, we effectively align ourselves with the least motivated — and nothing will be possible.
If a majority of voters seems today to be indifferent to the fate of the climate — and therefore of their own — the war with Iran brutally reminds us of our dependencies.
In any case, nature does not care about the oscillations of public opinion, and the laws of physics, biology or chemistry are not voted on in parliament. One can, like Icarus, glue wings to one's back and imagine taking flight. But to truly fly without crashing immediately to the ground, it is indeed the laws of physics that matter.
If a majority of voters seems today to be indifferent to the fate of the climate — and therefore of their own — the war with Iran brutally reminds us of our dependencies. Indeed, our energy mix remains composed two-thirds of oil and gas. With a third of our electricity coming from uranium, these are as many resources that we must import, sometimes from far away and from regions generally unstable.
This aspect remained very marginal in the debate about the climate fund. Yet the climate issue is also one of our energy supply. And the fact that the political forces that oppose treaties with the EU in the name of our "sovereignty" are also those that slow the transition will, in the future, need to be questioned more.
The other aspect of the March 8 vote concerns a question of economic perception. It is commonly thought that taxes and subsidies distort market mechanisms. In reality it is quite the opposite: it is the market mechanisms that are distorted, and taxes and subsidies serve precisely to correct them. This point will also need to be discussed in greater depth.
When an activity does not pay the costs it imposes on third parties, economists speak of negative externalities. The damage caused by fossil energy sources — their extraction, transport and combustion, but also the omnipresence of plastic waste derived from oil — is an excellent illustration. That is why the polluter-pays principle was put forward as early as the 1970s, notably by the OECD : the one who causes pollution must assume its costs. And it is indeed the abusively low cost of coal and oil that has made the world dependent on these energies.
As early as 1992, at the Earth Summit that enshrined the notion of sustainability, about fifty heads of international companies emphasized: "If there is one urgent correction to be made to the current functioning of markets, it is indeed the integration of these externalities into the calculation of production costs. […] Society must establish, via political processes, a price for the use of goods that are common property: water, the atmosphere, etc." The authors continued: "the fact that the price of energy does not reflect the full cost of its production constitutes an objective incentive to waste. […] It is necessary […] to integrate the cost of the environment into the price of goods and services."*
By becoming indifferent to the conditions for the viability of our planet, we are only accumulating lost time.
Symmetrically, we speak of positive externalities when goods or services that provide societal, health, cultural or environmental added value fail to be remunerated by their sales alone. Examples include agricultural production, urban and regional railways, forestry and many other activities, which are subsidized publicly: without these, they would either be unaffordable or already halted.
That markets are thus distorted is largely hidden from decision-makers and the general public. As is the fact that GDP, neglecting everything that is not the subject of a monetary transaction and summing indiscriminately the cost of an accident and the cost of its prevention, gives a very biased picture of a territory's health. Although this problem has been recognized for decades, GDP remains the almost unique benchmark for characterizing a country or region.
But whether it concerns climate disruption or market disruption, one still has to break through the wall of indifference that these issues seem to provoke. By neglecting the conditions for the viability of our planet, we are only accumulating lost time — and ever heavier burdens passed on to future generations. While the opponents of the climate fund claimed to want to spare them a financial debt, they now bear a climate debt and increasing risks.
*Stephan Schmidheiny, "Changing Course", Dunod, Paris 1992, p.39 and 61.
This article has been automatically translated using AI. If you notice any errors, please don't hesitate to contact us.
Citing Nicholas Stern and his report on the economics of climate change, Dominique Bidou, the author of "Recivilisation", reminds that "action against global warming makes it possible to avoid expenditures at least five times greater than the initial cost."
"It is neither fair nor constructive to pit technologies against each other in a supposed race for funding: it's a false debate," says Eric Plan, secretary-general of the CleantechAlps association.
A worrying phenomenon has been growing for several years: the gradual withdrawal of insurance companies from the most at-risk areas.
As this Thursday marks the official creation of a Swiss entity of the World Sufficiency Lab, we revisit the question of sufficiency with its cofounder and director, Yamina Saheb.