"Climate Protection and Subsidies: Do We Need Reforms?"
On Friday, October 20, 2023, the event "Climate Protection and Subsidies: Do we need reforms?" will take place. The interdisciplinary conference will explore the question of whether Switzerland needs reforms in government incentives to achieve the net-zero target by 2050.
Legal aspects are becoming increasingly important in climate protection. Some cases, such as the Climate Seniors' lawsuit against Switzerland before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, are only part of this development. "The importance of subsidies in climate protection has hardly been discussed by the legal sciences yet," says Charlotte Blattner, senior assistant at the Institute of Public Law and member of the Oeschger Center for Climate Research at the University of Bern and thereby in the organizing team of the conference at the interface of climate and legal sciences.
A figure compiled by Avenir Suisse 2022 shows just how important subsidies are in Switzerland: the federal government alone spends CHF 57 billion on them every year. This figure does not include subsidies from cantons and municipalities in unknown amounts. Some of these payments may encourage developments that increase greenhouse gas emissions in Switzerland. For example, subsidies for airports or a reduced mineral oil tax for vehicles used in agriculture and forestry. In addition to this direct support, there are also indirect factors, such as tax benefits for owner-occupied housing, which can increase the space to be heated and mobility.
Avoid conflicts of objectives
The first event of its kind in Switzerland, the Berner Subventionstagung, offers six introductory lectures by speakers from inside and outside the University of Bern. Afterwards, the contents will be deepened in parallel workshops. The discussion topics range from "Subsidies and the Energy System" to "The Role of Municipalities in Subsidies", "Incentives in Climate Protection(Law): Potential, limits and dangers" to "Climate protection and subsidies in agriculture".
Peter Bieri, senior assistant at the Institute of Public Law at the University of Bern and co-organizer of the conference, summarizes the starting point of the conference as follows: "The goal of subsidies is generally their effectiveness, and this must be reviewed again and again. Subsidies are intended to promote private action that is in the public interest. To date, far too little has been done to clarify whether there are any conflicting goals in this regard."
At the conference "Climate protection and subsidies: Do we need reforms?", experts from the scientific community will present the topics and discuss them with participants from politics and business.
Source: www.unibe.ch
