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. For sectors, the rating indicates that the target is consistent with warming of greater than 4°C if all other sectors were to follow the same approach.

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. For sectors, the rating indicates that the target is consistent with warming between 3°C and 4°C if all other sectors were to follow the same approach.

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. For sectors, the rating indicates that the target is consistent with warming over 2°C and up to 3°C if all other sectors were to follow the same approach.

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. For sectors, the rating indicates that the target is consistent with holding warming below, but not well below, 2°C if all other sectors were to follow the same approach.

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. For sectors, the rating indicates that the target 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. No “role model” rating has been developed for the sectors.

1.5°C Compatible< 1.5°C World

Historic emissions

Greenhouse gas emission inventories are based on the CRF 2020 submitted to the UNFCCC (Federal Office for the Environment, 2020).

NDC and other targets

We calculated targets for 2020, 2025, and 2030 from the most recent national inventory submissions (Federal Office for the Environment, 2020) 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 desire 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 1 MtCO₂e, 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, with the lower end of the range representing emission levels excluding this accounting rule.

Current policy projections

We use the “with measures” scenario submitted to the UNFCCC in Switzerland’s fourth biennial report for our current policy projections (Schweizerische Eidgenossenschaft, 2020c). 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 fourth biennial report. Many of these measures are included in the amended version of the CO₂ Act that has now passed both the lower and upper house of the Swiss Parliament and looks likely to be adopted in 2021.

COVID-19 impacts

We applied a novel method to estimate the COVID-19 related dip in greenhouse gas emissions in 2020 and the deployment through to 2030. The uncertainty surrounding the severity and length of the pandemic creates a new level of uncertainty for current and future greenhouse gas emissions. We first update the current and planned policy projections using the most recent projections, prepared before the pandemic. We then distil the emission intensity (GHG emissions/GDP) from this pre-pandemic scenario and apply to it the most recent GDP projections that take into account the effect of the pandemic.

We used GDP projections from the International Monetary Fund (IMF, 2020 max), the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO, 2021 max), and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD, 2020 and 2021 min) to create a minimum and maximum emissions pathway for 2020/21. The IMF projects a GDP reduction of 5.3% in 2020, while SECO projects a GDP increase of 5.3% in 2021. The OECD Double Hit Scenario estimates that GDP will decrease by 10% in 2020 and increase by 2.3% in 2021 (IMF, 2020; OECD, 2020; State Secretariat for Economic Affairs, 2020). GDP growth estimates for the years 2022 to 2030 were derived from the GDP estimates provided in Switzerland’s 4th Biennial Report from the original pre-pandemic current policy scenario (Schweizerische Eidgenossenschaft, 2020c).

Global Warming Potentials

The CAT uses Global Warming Potential (GWP) values from the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) for all figures and time series. Assessments completed prior to December 2018 (COP24) used GWP values from the IPCC’s Second Assessment Report (SAR).