Switzerland

Critically Insufficient4°C+ World

NDCs with this rating fall well outside of a country’s “fair share” range and are not at all consistent with holding warming to below 2°C let alone with the Paris Agreement’s stronger 1.5°C limit. If all government NDCs were in this range, warming would exceed 4°C.

Highly insufficient< 4°C World

NDCs with this rating fall outside of a country’s “fair share” range and are not at all consistent with holding warming to below 2°C let alone with the Paris Agreement’s stronger 1.5°C limit. If all government NDCs were in this range, warming would reach between 3°C and 4°C.

Insufficient< 3°C World

NDCs with this rating are in the least stringent part of a country’s “fair share” range and not consistent with holding warming below 2°C let alone with the Paris Agreement’s stronger 1.5°C limit. If all government NDCs were in this range, warming would reach over 2°C and up to 3°C.

2°C Compatible< 2°C World

NDCs with this rating are consistent with the 2009 Copenhagen 2°C goal and therefore fall within a country’s “fair share” range, but are not fully consistent with the Paris Agreement long term temperature goal. If all government NDCs were in this range, warming could be held below, but not well below, 2°C and still be too high to be consistent with the Paris Agreement 1.5°C limit.

1.5°C Paris Agreement Compatible< 1.5°C World

This rating indicates that a government’s NDCs in the most stringent part of its “fair share” range: it is consistent with the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C limit.

Role model<< 1.5°C World

This rating indicates that a government’s NDC is more ambitious than what is considered a “fair” contribution: it is more than consistent with the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C limit.

Global Warming Potentials

For this assessment we have updated all figures and time series to GWPs from the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4).

Historic emissions

Greenhouse gas emission inventories are based on the CRF 2018 submitted to the UNFCCC (UNFCCC, 2018).

Pledge

We calculated targets for 2020, 2025, and 2030 from the most recent national inventory submissions (UNFCCC, 2018) and based on the latest UNFCCC information on Convention pledges and Kyoto targets.

We calculated Switzerland's LULUCF accounting quantities in 2020 for afforestation, reforestation and deforestation using the current Kyoto rules and for forest management using a net-net approach with a projected reference level for 2013–2020. Switzerland has excluded emissions from extreme events (e.g. forest fires) in calculating their reference level.

Switzerland’s NDC includes LULUCF, for which the details of the accounting rules have yet to be decided. The NDC states the wish to use a reference level for forest land, while emissions for other land uses will be included both in the target and baseline years. We assume that the accounted LULUCF emissions in 2030 are the same as the projected LULUCF emissions (i.e. the forest reference level would be set at zero). This results in about 1MtCO₂e, which is added to the 2025 indicative target and 2030 target. Since this is likely an over-estimate of the accounted LULUCF emissions, we show the target as a range that on the other end excludes this accounting rule.

Current policy projections

For the policy projections we apply the growth rates based on the “with measures” scenario submitted to the UNFCCC in Switzerland’s third biennial report to the historic emissions (Swiss Confederation, 2018). The scenario reflects the current state of legislation, also taking into account the stipulated strengthening of existing policies and measures (i.e. any strengthening foreseen under current legislation).

The planned policy projections are based on the “with additional” measures scenario of the third biennial report. The scenario encompasses implemented, adopted and planned policies and measures, “thus reflecting the long-term target scenarios of the Swiss government, taking into account – in addition to all measures considered under the WEM scenario – the planned strengthening of existing policies and measures as well as new policies and measures that have not yet been put in concrete terms but are planned in order to reach the set targets” (Swiss Confederation, 2018).

Like the “with measures” scenario these results are applied to the historical values using growth rates and shown in SAR.