Switzerland

[chancery]

Shot (May 10):

A Swiss Village Is Warned to Flee Its Shifting Mountainside
Scientist say a rockslide could be imminent, but they can’t predict exactly what it will look like and whether the village of Brienz will survive.

Of Brienz’s 85 official residents, 60 live there year-round. (Because of its bucolic charm, the village’s population increases during the vacation season.) The village is working with neighboring towns to find private lodging close by.
“No one will have to sleep in a hotel or a gym,” said Mr. Gartmann, adding: “That does not exist with us.”

Gift link: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/10/worl ... =url-share

[chancery]

Chaser (June 16):

‘It Could Have Been So Much Worse’: Mountain Collapse Narrowly Misses Swiss Village
Fifty million cubic feet of rock came to rest just shy of Brienz and its schoolhouse.

Gift link: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/16/worl ... =url-share

[RTH10260]

The rocks above Brienz had been volatile for decades. About three months ago the residents were warned about an evacuation order and about four weeks ago they had to clear their houses. Luckily it seems that the winter ice cracked up the rocks and it was observed that the stuff was coming down as a mudside rather than in huge bolders.


from https://www.swissinfo.ch/ger/wissen-tec ... p/48595828


from https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/evacuated- ... z/48595332

Good news source on Switzerland in English
swissinfo.ch --- Swiss perspectives in 10 languages


Google Search for more https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=s ... .ch+brienz

[Volkonski]

Wow!

[Foggy]

[RTH10260]

How it looked before:

in a news item from 2019 where they discussed about moving the settlement


in https://www.aargauerzeitung.ch/schweiz/ ... ld.1172603

[RTH10260]

after the slide, but wider angle


https://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/europ ... z-100.html

[RTH10260]

Note - the highlighted one is under threat
"Brienz refers to two Swiss municipalities: Brienz BE, municipality on Lake Brienz, canton of Bern. Brienz/Brinzauls, village and former municipality in the canton of Graubünden."

[Dave from down under]

Swiss
Listened to science
Acted on science
As a cooperative caring society

[pipistrelle]

Swiss
Listened to science
Acted on science
As a cooperative caring society

Mass wasting events fascinate me. I'm weird.

My first thought was in the U.S. the villagers would say "the tyrannical government can't make me move. I don't believe in science. FREEDU-" -splat.

[Foggy]

Yes, and the scientists made an impressively accurate prediction. Inexact, of course, but a hell of a lot more exact than they could have done in the past.

I mean, honestly. They predicted a rockslide, and it came true?

[RTH10260]

In this article a video of rocks going downhill, from Saturday a week ago.

(cannot imbed video separetly)

https://www.zueritoday.ch/schweiz/hefti ... -151959113

[RTH10260]

22 Mar 2023

[RTH10260]

17 May 2023

[Foggy]

I'm driving down to Wilmington this morning. Prediction: No rockslides. It's 125 miles, with a very, very mild drop in elevation over that distance of about 300 feet, i.e., less than that one little mountain. There could be rocks on the side of the road. Not rolling. I am grateful.

[RTH10260]

Off Topic

In Austia, last Sunday, Tirolean mountain top toppled (half of it gone)

[bill_g]

From the photo, that's not the first time that mountainside has let go. That village has good angels.

We get smaller versions of that every year here - from nuisance highway closures until they can clear the road, to homes sliding off the hill, mountain passes filled, and streams blocked. The yellow road sign "Falling Rocks" can mean anything from fist size to locomotive size rocks.

[chancery]

Swiss
Listened to science
Acted on science
As a cooperative caring society

That's what most struck me about the stories. Compare Reagan's sneering attitude towards government.

[chancery]

Here's a discussion of the Brienz-Brinzauls landslide from David Petley's Landslide Blog, hosted by the American Geophysical Union. Petley's blog is a fascinating and frequently scary source of information and news.

https://blogs.agu.org/landslideblog/202 ... s-failure/

[RTH10260]

Human rights violated by Swiss inaction on climate, ECHR rules in landmark case
Court finds in favour of group of older Swiss women who claimed weak policies put them at greater risk of death from heatwaves

Ajit Niranjan
Tue 9 Apr 2024 14.25 CEST

Weak government climate policies violate fundamental human rights, the European court of human rights has ruled.

In a landmark decision on one of three major climate cases, the first such rulings by an international court, the ECHR raised judicial pressure on governments to stop filling the atmosphere with gases that make extreme weather more violent.

The court’s top bench ruled that Switzerland had violated the rights of a group of older Swiss women to family life, but threw out a French mayor’s case against France and that of a group of young Portuguese people against 32 European countries.

“It feels like a mixed result because two of the cases were inadmissible,” said Corina Heri, a law researcher at the University of Zürich. “But actually it’s a huge success.”

The court, which calls itself “the conscience of Europe”, found that Switzerland had failed to comply with its duties to stop climate change. It also set out a path for organisations to bring further cases on behalf of applicants.

The Swiss verdict opens up all 46 members of the Council of Europe to similar cases in national courts that they are likely to lose.

Joie Chowdhury, an attorney at the Centre for International Environmental Law campaign group, said the judgment left no doubt that the climate crisis was a human rights crisis. “We expect this ruling to influence climate action and climate litigation across Europe and far beyond,” she said.

The facts of the three cases varied widely, but they all hinged on the question of whether government inaction on climate change violated fundamental human rights. Some of the governments argued that the cases should not be admitted, and that climate policy should be the subject of national governments rather than international courts.




https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... dmark-case

[RTH10260]

Comment IMHO a stupid decision by the court in respect to Switzerland. The government cannot do more than the voters will accept. The court did not decide what measures the government would need to take. Also too this small country "imports" its weather from around its borders, it cannot just stop a heat wave Any contribution to keep greenhouse gases are limited, and are already in place and matching that of our neighbouring countries.

Just make some comparison, our approx 8 million residents with any of the top city populations and consider the impact local measures will have.

Code: Select all

Rank	City	Country	2024 Population	2023 Population	Growth Rate

1	Tokyo	Japan	37,115,035	37,194,105	-0.21%
2	Delhi	India		33,807,403	32,941,309	2.63%
3	Shanghai	China	29,867,918	29,210,808	2.25%
4	Dhaka	Bangladesh	23,935,652	23,209,616	3.13%
5	Sao Paulo	Brazil	22,806,704	22,619,736	0.83%
6	Cairo	Egypt	22,623,874	22,183,201	1.99%
7	Mexico City	Mexico	22,505,315	22,281,442	1%
8	Beijing	China	22,189,082	21,766,214	1.94%
9	Mumbai	India		21,673,149	21,296,517	1.77%
10	Osaka	Japan	18,967,459	19,013,434	-0.24%
11	Chongqing	China	17,773,923	17,340,704	2.5%
12	Karachi	Pakistan	17,648,555	17,236,230	2.39%
13	Kinshasa	DR Congo	17,032,322	16,315,534	4.39%
14	Lagos	Nigeria	16,536,018	15,945,912	3.7%
15	Istanbul	Turkey	16,047,350	15,847,768	1.26%
16	Buenos Aires	Argentina	15,618,288	15,490,415	0.83%
17	Kolkata	India	15,570,786	15,332,793	1.55%
18	Manila	Philippines	14,941,953	14,667,089	1.87%
19	Guangzhou	China	14,590,096	14,284,353	2.14%
20	Tianjin	China	14,470,873	14,238,643	1.63%
21	Lahore	Pakistan	14,407,074	13,979,390	3.06%
22	Bangalore	India	14,008,262	13,607,800	2.94%
23	Rio De Janeiro	Brazil	13,824,347	13,727,720	0.7%
24	Shenzhen	China	13,311,855	13,072,633	1.83%
25	Moscow	Russia	12,712,305	12,680,389	0.25%
26	Chennai	India	12,053,697	11,776,147	2.36%
27	Bogota	Colombia	11,658,211	11,507,960	1.31%
28	Jakarta	Indonesia	11,436,004	11,248,839	1.66%
29	Lima	Peru	11,361,938	11,204,382	1.41%
30	Paris	France	11,276,701	11,208,440	0.61%

source https://www.jagranjosh.com/general-know ... 97031444-1

[RTH10260]

The dust has settled and we now know more about this reprimand on Switzerland.

Fun fact: on the board of judges there was also a Swiss judge who voted for this ruling.

Fun fact: this ruling is the first in its kind and is now a precedent for all other European countries.

The ruling in short: Switzerland signed the Paris Climate Accord of 2015. The judges followed the plaintiffs and ruled that to date Switzerland had not done enough to implement the Paris Climate Accord locally.

Effects of this ruling: none. Switzerland will continue implementation at its own pace. The judgement does not contain any directives on when and how to proceed.

Side effect: the European Parliament gets to include this item in its yearly report on progress of following the rulings by the European Court.

A short interview with the Swiss judge on the panel (in German, use a translator):
https://www.srf.ch/news/schweiz/egmr-ri ... verurteilt

Two quotes with the judicial basis out of the European Human Rights Convention used for the ruling:
(in terms of the US Constitution this would likely match with the clause on pursuit of happiness)

"In doing so, we were guided by the Human Rights Convention. There are two articles there where you can make a reference to climate change. One is the right to life. It has been proven that climate change can affect people's lives."

"On the other hand, there is the right to privacy. This also includes physical well-being. This can be affected by emissions, e.g. toxic gases that are emitted. There are already rulings from the European Court of Human Rights that state that the private lives of people who live near factories that cause emissions are affected. Climate change represents a new challenge because the damage is not immediate."

[RTH10260]

The Guardian has this interview with the plaintiffs of above case.

Podcast in the article

How Swiss women won a landmark climate case for Europe

Today in Focus Series

Presented by Hannah Moore with Isabella Kaminski; produced by Tom Glasser, George McDonagh and Solomon King; executive producer Elizabeth Cassin

Mon 15 Apr 2024 04.00 CEST

Last week a group of older women successfully challenged the Swiss government’s climate policies at the European court of human rights. Isabella Kaminski reports

“It took me a while until the penny dropped that we’d actually won.”

Elisabeth Stern, 76, is a climate activist with the KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz (Senior Women for Climate Protection Switzerland), a campaign group of 2,400 older Swiss women.

In a case at the European court of human rights, the group argued that older women were more likely to die in heatwaves, and that the Swiss government was not doing enough to curb carbon emissions.

“We all know the climate is changing,” Stern tells Hannah Moore. “But the government has to do something to protect the people during those very, very hot days, right? And making sure that we don’t have more and more hot days like that. So every country has to make a contribution, which Switzerland is not doing.”

Last week the group won the case. The court ruled that the government’s weak climate policies violated fundamental human rights.

The journalist Isabella Kaminski tells Hannah about the ruling, and what it means for future climate cases.



https://www.theguardian.com/news/audio/ ... pe-podcast

[RTH10260]

Strasbourg court’s Swiss climate ruling could have global impact, say experts
Decision by European court of human rights around vulnerability of older women to heatwaves marks significant shift

Isabella Kaminski
Sat 13 Apr 2024 06.00 CEST

A landmark legal ruling at the European court of human rights could open the floodgates for a slew of new court cases around the world, experts have said.

The Strasbourg-based court said earlier this week that Switzerland’s failure to do enough to cut its national greenhouse gas emissions was a clear violation of the human rights of a group of more than 2,000 older Swiss women. The women argued successfully that their rights to privacy and family life were being breached because they were particularly vulnerable to the health impacts of heatwaves.

It was the first time the court, which is responsible for interpreting the European convention on human rights, a treaty signed by all members of the Council of Europe, had ruled on a climate change-related matter.

Lawyers, academics and campaigners will be poring over the 250-page judgment for months to come. But it is already clear that it marks a significant shift in the role that courts will play in addressing the climate crisis and how states will have to respond.

“The court really recognised that it cannot be that because everyone is affected no one has the right to seek justice for climate harm,” said Nikki Reisch, climate and energy director at the Center for International Environmental Law. “And it acknowledged that because of the clear impacts of climate change on human rights there is a basis for victims to make claims.”

The 17-judge panel did not prescribe exactly what Switzerland should do to address the problem, leaving it to the Council of Europe’s committee of ministers to come up with a solution.

But it did lay out minimum governance standards that states should have “due regard” to, such as setting carbon budgets and interim targets, keeping these updated and based on the best available evidence, and being transparent about how well they are being met.

Reisch said: “What the court did quite clearly was to say that, while the Swiss government retains some discretion to define the precise measures it will take, that discretion is not unfettered; it has to be within the bounds of what science shows is clearly required to prevent further harm.”

The ruling has not received an entirely glowing welcome. The rightwing Swiss People’s party accused the court of overreach and called for Switzerland to leave the Council of Europe.

There was a similar backlash in the UK from some politicians and rightwing media. The energy secretary, Claire Coutinho, wrote on X that she was concerned by the decision. “How we tackle climate change affects our economic, energy, and national security,” she said. “Elected politicians are best placed to make those decisions.”

In response, Jessica Simor KC, who represented the Swiss women in court, pointed out that the UK government maintains it has plans and policies to meet its legally binding carbon budgets. “If so, it is complying with its obligations. If not, it is acting contrary to the will of elected representatives,” she wrote.

Reisch said: “Governments that sought to shield their action or inaction from the court’s scrutiny … may be critical of such a decision.

“But what is really striking in this case is that you have 17 judges from many different countries, perspectives and legal backgrounds and this was a near unanimous decision.”

The only dissenting opinion was from the UK judge Tim Eicke, who argued that the rest of the panel “tried to run before it could walk” and “went beyond what was legitimate”.

The remaining judges appear to have been conscious of such criticism, noting that judicial intervention cannot replace legislative and executive action. “However, democracy cannot be reduced to the will of the majority of the electorate and elected representatives, in disregard of the requirements of the rule of law,” they state in their ruling.




https://www.theguardian.com/law/2024/ap ... man-rights