E. Switzerland

Abstract

In contrast to all of its neighbours, the Swiss Confederation (Switzerland) is not a member of the European Union (EU) or the European Economic Area (EEA). The country is, however, connected with the EU by a densely knit network of bilateral treaties. As to Switzerland’s state of the environment, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) published its Environmental Performance Review on Switzerland on 27 November 2017 (OECD Publishing 2017 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264279674-en>). The OECD, of which Switzerland is a founding member, conducted similar assessments in 1998 and 2007. In its Review of 2017, said international organization pointed out that Switzerland ranks amongst the least carbon-intensive countries within the OECD, emitting 88 kilograms of carbon dioxide in order to generate US $1,000 of gross domestic product (GDP) (the average of all OECD-countries being 256 kilograms of carbon dioxide per US $1,000 of GDP generated). This conforms to roughly 6.4 tonnes per capita emitted in Switzerland per year. It is an economy dominated by not only services but also high shares of renewables and nuclear energy contributes, according to the Review, to this performance. Fossil fuels, accordingly, account for only approximately one-half of the total primary energy supply, considerably below the OECD average of 84 percent. Coal provides for as little as 1 percent of Switzerland’s primary energy supply, the lowest level amongst the OECD’s thirty-five member countries, as the Review notes. The Review furthermore approvingly acknowledges a modal shift of freight from road to rail enhanced by a ‘performance-based charge on heavy goods vehicles’ introduced in 2001, reducing the number of trucks crossing the Swiss Alps by 30 percent between 2000 and 2014. The opening of the Gotthard Base Tunnel—at fifty-seven kilometres, the longest railway tunnel worldwide—in December 2016 is projected to accelerate this shift. In regard to heavy traffic, the OECD further highlighted that Switzerland is one of the few countries taxing diesel fuel at a higher rate than petrol on the grounds of higher carbon and air pollutant emissions per unit, while taking note of Switzerland’s comparatively low and decreasing environmental tax rate currently accounting for less than 2 percent of GDP (or a mere €77 per tonne of carbon dioxide, while allowing for a wide range of exemptions).