- The SP and the Greens want to jointly launch a popular initiative to create a climate fund. This is what SP Co-President Cédric Wermuth and Greens President Balthasar Glättli announced in a joint interview with the weekly newspaper WOZ.
- At first, both parties had envisaged their own initiatives on the same topic.
- According to the original initiative text of the SP, a climate fund is to be created in Switzerland, into which up to seven billion francs will flow annually. The money will then be invested in the ecological restructuring of Switzerland.
The two parties had agreed that it would be wrong to overburden the climate issue with party politics, said Wermuth in an interview. That’s why they wanted to join forces.
It also makes little sense for Glättli to compete on this topic. In addition, it is “a good sign when two parties who have taken up the fight for climate justice independently come up with similar solutions”.
Initiative pursues five goals
According to Wermuth, the initiative is about five goals: decarbonising transport, real estate and the economy, increasing the security of supply with renewable energies from Switzerland, further training and retraining opportunities, promoting negative emissions and strengthening biodiversity.
A large part of this is to be financed through debt. That was completely justified, said Wermuth. Because investments in infrastructure always pay off.
For Wermuth, the initiative would be a «hope perspective, a major social project, the old age pension of the 21st century, so to speak.