Swiss climate activists continue to protest, but change ‘is not easy’
On Friday activists gather in Swiss cities for the latest “global climate strike”. As numbers on the streets dwindle, is the movement still influential? In September 2019 Swiss climate activism hit the big time when 100,000 people demonstrated in Bern, many of them inspired by Swedish activist Greta Thunberg’s global climate movement. A month later, parliamentary elections vindicated the mood, with the Green Party making unprecedented gains. Things have since gone a bit differently: following a pandemic, various wars, a cost-of-living squeeze, and a banking collapse, carbon emissions are still a top concern for the Swiss population – but not always the top. While people are largely aware of climate issues, they aren’t always ready to act accordingly: the Greens slipped back again in 2023 elections, Zurich airport is thriving, SUV sales are booming, and numbers at Swiss climate protests have “melted faster than the glaciers”, as the Tages-Anzeiger wrote last year. “I didn’t even ...