Background - 09.03.2026 - 09:10
The arguments for and against the climate fund initiative have been debated — and now the electorate has made its decision: There will be no climate fund in the form proposed by the initiative. The outcome of the vote is not surprising. As an instrument of the Swiss direct democratic system, citizens can launch popular initiatives — however, these initiatives rarely succeed. Of the 113 popular initiatives that have been voted on in the 21st century, only 14 have been accepted by the people and the cantons. To have a realistic chance of being accepted, the initiative would have had to succeed in building bridges from the political left to the centre. While the Social Democratic Party (SP) and the Greens supported the initiative, as did the small Evangelical Party (EVP), the initiators could not count on the Green Liberals (GLP) or The Centre (formerly CVP/BDB). Somewhat more surprising is that the initiative also failed to achieve another goal: to draw sustained public attention to the challenge of how Switzerland can achieve the net-zero target decided by voters in 2023. According to a media analysis by the University of Zurich, the climate fund initiative was overshadowed in the referendum campaign by the intense debates on individual taxation and the SRG initiative.
Why is it still worth taking a second look at the concerns raised by the initiative? Unlike some other initiatives whose topics disappeared into oblivion after being rejected – think of the Service Citoyen initiative or the Sovereign Money initiative – the challenges of climate change and the decarbonization of the economy will continue to occupy us for generations to come, regardless of the outcome of the vote. The net-zero target can only be achieved if it is backed up by the necessary investments in the restructuring of industry, infrastructure, agriculture, energy and mobility systems. The faster and more consistently we achieve this change, the lower the follow-up costs of adapting to changing climatic conditions will be. However, the measures taken so far are not enough.
One example: the energy renovation rate in Switzerland's building stock is currently around 0.9% per year. However, studies show that it would have to rise to around 3% per year in order to achieve the net-zero target. As a study published in 2025 by the University of St.Gallen shows, most Swiss tenants are in favour of prompt energy-efficient renovation and the installation of renewable heating systems. The adoption of the Climate Fund Initiative would have helped to provide the necessary funds for the decarbonization of the building sector. Now, other ways must be found.
But why do we need targets such as "net zero" in the first place? MIT professor John Sterman explained this more than two decades ago using a simple analogy. Just like a bathtub whose tap we keep turning on, we have been enriching our planet's atmosphere with greenhouse gases since the beginning of industrialization. Up to a certain point, we can fill the tub with the ever-faster flow of water without any problems. But at some point, it will overflow. A team of scientists recently documented once again in the journal One Earth that the Earth's atmosphere is approaching such a point at an alarming rate. To prevent the tub from overflowing, we must turn down the water flow to the point where it is in balance with the drain.
In other words, emissions must be reduced to the point where they are in equilibrium (‘net zero’) with absorption, for example by oceans and forests. If this is not achieved, our climate threatens to depart from the equilibrium that has existed for almost 12,000 years and forms the basis of our modern civilisation. As the study "Klimazukunft Schweiz" (Climate Future Switzerland) published in 2025 by MeteoSchweiz and ETH Zurich shows, global warming of 3 °C compared to pre-industrial times — as would result from the currently planned emission reductions — would have serious consequences for all sectors of the Swiss economy.
In scientific discourse, we often assume that such fundamental facts about the climate are well known. But it's not that simple: as recent studies in journals such as Nature Climate Change and Journal of Environmental Management show, there are still significant gaps in climate education. This underscores the need to anchor climate and sustainability education even more firmly in educational institutions.
However, it is at least as important as understanding the physical fundamentals to give tomorrow's decision-makers an understanding of the social mechanisms that enable or prevent effective political responses to climate change. For, as has been shown many times, the biggest stumbling blocks on the path to a net-zero economy lie less in a lack of technology than in the forces of inertia in politics and society. Universities can make an important contribution here. Questions such as the following deserve particular attention: How do central tenets of political belief systems – espoused in particular by political parties – influence and narrow the scope of legitimate climate policy measures? How can power asymmetries between different groups be overcome, for example, between the short-term interests of the oil and gas industry and the long-term interests of future generations? How do political and institutional structures shape our ability to organize the phase-out of fossil fuel technologies – and which of these structures need to be reviewed? The aim of climate education, understood in this way, should be to give those stakeholders who are not responsible for climate change but who have to bear its consequences the tools they need to actively shape their future.
In the vote on the climate fund, citizens born in the 21st century accounted for around 12% of those eligible to vote. The adoption of the initiative would have given younger and future generations a tool to better assert their interests. Following the rejection of the proposal, the question now arises as to how the concerns of those generations that will be particularly affected by climate change can be better taken into account. Universities can play a central role in finding answers — not least by empowering young people to participate competently in these debates.
Adrian Rinscheid is Professor of Climate Policy & Decision-Making at the School of Economics and Political Science.
