Truth or tale: Is Switzerland ‘doing nothing’ to prepare for climate change?
Series Truth or tale,
Episode 15:
Is Switzerland adequately preparing for the effects of climate change, or is it lagging behind other countries? A Swissinfo reader posed the question, and we went looking for answers.
Switzerland has just experienced its hottest summer since records began in 1864. The city of Basel registered more days above 30°C than in all of 2003, a historically hot year, and almost a third of MeteoSwiss’s 149 stations recorded their highest temperature ever.
Against that backdrop, critics say that Switzerland is ill prepared for climate change, is resistant to measures such as air conditioning, and lags behind neighbouring countries.
This article answers a question from a Swissinfo reader. Have you heard a rumour about Switzerland you would like us to fact-check? Get in touch hereExternal link.
Emissions reduction versus adaptation
Climate policy has two parts: mitigation to cut carbon emissions and adaptation to prepare for climate change’s impacts on society.
In Switzerland, criticism usually targets the first. This summer, Environment Minister Albert Rösti said that it will be difficult to meet Switzerland’s climate target of halving emissions by 2030, blaming federal government budget cuts. A significant share of Switzerland’s emissions reductions relies on offsetting emissions abroad through carbon credits rather than making those cuts at home. It’s an approach that environmental groups have criticised for years.
The European Court of Human Rights also ruled that Switzerland is not doing enough to curb climate change at home in its landmark 2024 ruling.
And an international climate ranking last year – the Climate Change Performance Index – placed Switzerland 26th out of 63 countries and gave it a low score for its national climate policy. The index is based on emissions, renewables and energy use but has no indicator to show how well countries are adapting to climate change.
What Switzerland has built to adapt to climate change
The Swiss government launched a national climate change adaptation strategy in 2012. A large share of annual funds is attributed to adapting to natural hazards, where Switzerland has decades of experience: around CHF2.9 billion ($3.6 billion) a year, roughly 0.6% of GDP, with hazard maps covering over 90% of settled areas.
The system was put to the test last year. On May 28, the Birch Glacier in the Lötschental valley collapsed under the weight of rockfalls from the crumbling Kleines Nesthorn mountain, burying the village of Blatten beneath nine million cubic metres of rock, mud and ice. The mountain had been closely monitored for years, and some 300 residents were evacuated in advance. One person died, a shepherd who had returned to an area just outside the evacuation zone.
The status of heat mitigation plans
After roughly 1,000 more people died than expected during the 2003 heatwave, cantons in French-speaking Switzerland and Ticino launched heat action plans. Others parts of Switzerland did not. Researchers from the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute later compared eight cities. In the five without heat action plans, the link between temperature and mortality did not change after 2003. In the three that had them, including Geneva, heat-related mortality risk fell noticeably.
Only eight ofSwitzerland’s 26 cantons have a heat action plan that meets World Health Organization standards, and the support available elsewhere varies widely. Geneva conducts daily welfare checks on registered vulnerable residents during heatwaves and offers elderly residents free tickets to air-conditioned cinemas and swimming pools.
A nationwide heat action plan is currently difficult to implement. Such plans are a cantonal responsibility, and the federal government can only issue recommendations, Martina Ragettli of the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute told Swiss public broadcaster SRF in August.
Heat kills more people in Switzerland than any other natural hazard, Ragettli says, far more than avalanches, landslides or floods. In the last week of June alone, 175 more people aged over-65 died than expected, according to the Federal Statistical Office.
Why is air conditioning so hard to install?
Air conditioning is not banned anywhere in Switzerland. Mobile units need no permit. Fixed systems require approval and must meet cantonal energy and noise standards. Buildings must also be protected against summer heat first, usually with external shading, before permits can be considered for cooling systems. The aim is to prevent owners from cooling badly built flats instead of fixing them. However, requests to install cooling systems are rarely rejected. Zurich’s cantonal government said in 2025 that it believed such refusals to be few, and around 20,000 units are installed in the canton each year.
Is Switzerland lagging behind its neighbours when it comes to climate adaptation?
By standard benchmarks, no. The European Environment Agency (EEA) lists Switzerland as having both an adopted adaptation strategy and a national action plan. It says it is one of only three countries with federal climate legislation that has adaptation provisions. Germany’s adaptation act requires measurable targets and monitoring, and France’s latest plan prepares explicitly for four degrees of warming by 2100. Switzerland has strategies, not binding targets. Its revised strategy, promised for the end of 2025, is still described as “under revision”.
Water is the bigger issue. This summer, more than 190 municipalities asked residents to restrict water use. Switzerland did not run out of water; it is just spread unevenly. Vincent Humphrey of MeteoSwiss told Swissinfo that the heavily populated central Plateau region as well as the Prealps and the Jura are unfamiliar with managing water shortages or conflicts. A national early-warning system launched in 2025 works well, but a national water management strategy is not due before the end of 2027, and there is no centralised measurement of how much water Swiss agriculture and industry use. EU countries built measurement systems 25 years ago, and the Swiss government identified the gap in 2012.
So, is Switzerland ‘doing nothing’ to prepare for climate change?
No. Switzerland is among the best-prepared countries in Europe for managing longstanding hazards such as floods, avalanches and landslides. Its monitoring systems helped evacuate a mountain village nine days before it was buried. But preparedness for newer risks, including heat, drought and water scarcity, is much less established, also due to factors such as younger institutions, fragmented cantonal policies, an overdue strategy and money for adapting the forest cut and then restored only after a record summer forced the issue.
Adaptation measures are essential but will not be enough on their own, climatologist Sonia Seneviratne explained in July. Unless the underlying cause is addressed, societies will reach their limits in being able to adapt.
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Edited by Simon Bradley/VdV
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