Global climate justice
Switzerland bears responsibility for the global climate crisis, and must make its contribution to global climate justice. After all, people in the poorest countries are suffering the most from climate change, having contributed the least to it.
What it is about
Heat, droughts, floods and hurricanes – the impacts of the climate crisis are jeopardising the lives of ever more people in the Global South. Unlike Switzerland, the poorest countries bear no responsibility for the climate crisis, and yet their people are being disproportionately impacted by it. Switzerland has so far fallen short of its climate targets; its per capita greenhouse emissions are still far too high. But this responsibility extends well beyond its borders, in that two-thirds of Switzerland's footprint is attributable to imported goods. The Swiss financial and commodity trading centre plays an even greater role.
Alliance Sud strives to ensure that Switzerland shoulders its responsibility for global climate protection. Switzerland must become climate-neutral by 2040, by reducing its domestic emissions balance to zero and effectively cutting its consumption-related emissions abroad. As a polluter country, Switzerland must also pay its fair share of the costs confronting the Global South, for the purposes of emission control, climate change adaptation, and compensation for loss and damage caused by the climate crisis (see climate finance).
