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HEATWAVE

Water flown in by helicopter: How Switzerland has been hit by drought

Parts of Switzerland will get some much-needed rain in the coming days. But will that be enough to fix the current drought situation?

Published: 17 August 2022 10:11 CEST
Updated: 20 August 2022 10:09 CEST
Water flown in by helicopter: How Switzerland has been hit by drought
This photograph taken on July 22, 2022, shows the dried out bed of the Lac des Brenets' part of the Doubs river, a natural border between eastern France and western Switzerland. (Photo by Fabrice COFFRINI / AFP)

Switzerland is drying up. Extreme heat, with the alpine country going through one of the hottest summers in history, and prolonged drought are transforming the landscape in Switzerland and making authorities take somewhat drastic measures to combat the effects of the climate crisis.

Pastures are in danger of dying in the Alps, so the Swiss army is airlifting water for the cows using helicopters – a measure that has been taken before and should become more common as temperatures rise.

The long dry spell has also impacted Switzerland’s production of milk and cheese, as The Local reported. While some cantons opted to fly water up the Alps, others, such as Vaud, are bringing their cattle to lower ground earlier than usual.

The situation is similarly dire in the canton of Fribourg, where the famous Gruyère cheese has been produced for centuries.

READ ALSO: ‘Don’t sleep naked’: How to get a good night’s sleep in a Swiss heatwave

“The situation is tense, even critical”, according to Frédéric Ménétrey, director of the Fribourg Chamber of Agriculture, who said that 15 alpine pastures that are inaccessible by road are being supplied by private helicopters.

With a “lack of water and dry grass”, milk production could be reduced by “20 to 30 percent”, Said Dominique de Buman, president of the Fribourg Cooperative of Alpine Cheese Producers.

Different trails and views

Some classic Swiss hiking routes had to be closed off as warmer temperatures speed up glacier melt, making them full of hazards like falling rocks released from the ice. Once green mountains are becoming arider, transforming Switzerland into Tuscany.

The transformations will have a significant effect on a country with a tourism industry heavily dependent on winter and skiing. Some cantons have covered glaciers to protect them from melting – again, not a new measure, but one that should become more necessary in the future.

The arid look extends to the famous Swiss lakes, with many of them at historic low points this season. Rivers are also low on water, exposing banks and creating dry islands. Even from one year to another, the change is evident:

As water temperatures rise, fish are also in danger. The Swiss Fisheries Federation (SPF) has warned of fish deaths in “historic proportions” nationwide due to persistent heat and high exploitation of rivers for electricity generation.

In Schaffhausen, authorities have fished out stocks and brought them to cooler zones, as hot water temperatures can be deadly for the animals.

The risk of forest fires is also extremely high, with the entire country currently in danger of wildfires, as The Local reported. The risk is higher in the south of Switzerland.

READ ALSO: MAP: The Swiss regions in danger of wildfires and the measures in place to avoid them

Rain prospects offer little hope

The weather is about to change this week in Switzerland, Meteonews reports.

While some areas of Switzerland have been hit by thunderstorms in the past days, providing some relief for agriculture and nature in general, the amount of rain has not been sufficient to counteract the effects of the drought that has impacted much of the country.

However, as rainfall is expected in much of the country, there could be some relief – though “it would take several weeks of almost daily rain to see a real and lasting improvement”, meteorologist Vincent Devantay said.

The rain will also bring in “much cooler temperatures”, but the summer weather will come back from Sunday, “with increasingly warm temperatures and no clear deterioration is in sight for the future”.

READ ALSO: Switzerland to get rain this week — at last

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CLIMATE CRISIS

OPINION: Are the Swiss finally going to get serious on tackling the climate crisis?

Switzerland is particularly vulnerable to the impact of the climate crisis but the Swiss have so far failed to respond adequately to the growing emergency. Clare O’Dea looks at whether a breakthrough is finally on the cards.

Published: 25 May 2023 13:56 CEST
OPINION: Are the Swiss finally going to get serious on tackling the climate crisis?

On June 18th, voters will have the chance to accept or reject Switzerland’s climate protection law, which sets out a path to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The referendum to potentially block the law was called by the populist Swiss People’s Party.

Parliament passed this climate law in September 2022 but the conservative right People’s Party quickly gathered enough signatures to call a referendum. The party did the same thing the last time a government plan for climate measures was approved by parliament, winning the argument at the ballot box in June 2021.

Partly as a result of these delays, Switzerland has slipped down several places to 22nd in the Climate Change Performance Index, performing worse than the EU average in the latest rankings. 

As an Alpine country, Switzerland is particularly vulnerable to the impact of the climate crisis, with temperatures rising at twice the global average. Droughts and heatwaves in recent years have accelerated the melting of Swiss glaciers. 

Read more about the impact of the climate crisis in Switzerland

The new climate protection law takes a rather soft approach to industry and consumers. It has the backing of economic and farming lobby groups, as well as all political parties, bar one. 

But it still plots an ambitious course. Switzerland currently imports three-quarters of its energy needs. The goal is to increase energy independence by pivoting away from imported fossil fuels completely. 

The measures include emission reduction trajectories for industry, transport and buildings, to reduce energy consumption, but the law stops short of introducing any new taxes or bans.

The carrot for homeowners is two billion francs to support the replacement of gas and oil heating systems or electric heaters with cleaner alternatives. Another 1.2 billion francs is promised to companies investing in climate-friendly technologies.

The People’s Party is hoping it can convince voters to torpedo this law, as it managed to do successfully with the more robust “CO2 Law” in 2021. 

The rejection of the CO2 law, which was based on the “polluter pays” principle, came as a shock to the government, because the swing to a narrow “no” (51.6 percent) came near the end of the campaign after a strong start for the “yes” camp. Voters were ultimately swayed by fears of higher costs to their household budgets. 

This aerial picture taken on September 13, 2022 at Glacier 3000 resort above Les Diablerets shows the Tsanfleuron pass free of the ice that covered it for at least 2,000 years next to blankets (L) covering snow from the last winter season to prevent it from melting. (Photo by Fabrice COFFRINI / AFP)

The argument of “an explosion in electricity prices” has been revived for this year’s vote. Concerns about energy security are also front and centre, with the tagline “too extreme and much too expensive”. 

In addition, the perceived negative visual impact on the landscape of renewable energy installations – wind and solar –is being highlighted. 

The issue of energy security is the subject of a recently published white paper by the Energy Science Center at Zurich’s ETH. The modelling shows that “a complete de-carbonaisation of Switzerland’s energy system is compatible with a high degree of energy security under certain conditions.”

What’s needed, according to the research, is a rapid expansion in renewable electricity production and the efficient integration of Switzerland into the European electricity market.

The law being voted on next month is the outcome of the so-called Glacier Initiative which was launched by the Swiss Association for Climate Protection in 2019. It provided for a ban on all fossil fuels by 2050, if there were no “technical alternatives”.

The association withdrew their initiative when they saw the government’s indirect counter proposal. This is a common dynamic in compromise-driven Swiss politics. Activists bring forward a referendum with radical goals that may or may not pass at the ballot box. 

To avoid the risk, the government crafts a compromise or watered-down version of the proposed legislation, which is then accepted by parliament, prompting the initiative committee to drop their campaign. 

The tug of war can be dragged out if there is a third party opposed to the watered-down version; in the current case, Swiss People’s Party. By objecting to the new law, they can reignite the debate and stall the whole process.

The climate debate rumbles on in Switzerland, with some taking a fatalistic view that the country is too small to make any difference, so why bother? 

With the support of Greenpeace, a group of older women known as the KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz (Senior Women for Climate Protection Switzerland) are bothering – by taking a case to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).  

Their aim is to boost climate action in Switzerland through a lawsuit against the government that argues their health, as older people, is being put at risk by government inaction. Theirs was the first such case to come before the ECHR. 

READ ALSO: Climate change ‘transforming Switzerland into Tuscany’

Other more attention-grabbing protests are taking place in Switzerland. Most recently, on May 23rd, a group of 100 protestors from various groups, carried out an action at Geneva airport, targeting private jets that were on display as part of a fair. 

Just before Easter, activists from Renovate Switzerland blocked southbound holiday traffic by glueing themselves to the motorway surface near the entrance of the Gotthard Tunnel.

In another protest last month, a man glued himself to the podium of a televised political debate after local elections in Geneva, to the indignation of the presenter and the crowd, who booed as he was removed. 

Amid the apparent lack of consensus in Switzerland on how or whether to take action against global warming, the upcoming vote on June 18th has the potential to provide some badly-needed direction to the country and its citizens. 

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