Swiss cantons have almost all adopted a climate mitigation target and plans to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. What is interesting is that these targets vary greatly across cantons. While some adopted targets aligned with the federal government, others adopted less ambitious targets. Some cantons have even adopted climate mitigation targets of greater ambition than the federal government. These targets also vary in scope and legal mechanisms, and some display unique and novel features.
Recent research on variation of support for environmental policies and laws in the Swiss context has highlighted the importance of the urban/rural divide (Ruprecht 2024) and prior beliefs and policy design preferences (Montfort 2023). Other research has highlighted variations in the transposition of international law in regional governments (Niederhauser et Maggetti 2023; Xu 2021).While our data find some support for these explanations, some cantons display counterintuitive targets.
This paper seeks to understand the main drivers of climate mitigation ambition in Swiss cantons. With a qualitative comparative analysis (QCA), this paper looks at various potential explanations such as population, economic activities, and framing to see why some cantons adopt climate targets that are more ambitious, credible, and novel while others are laggers.
This research builds on three types of original data. First, each Canton's climate targets are coded. We assess different features of the targets, such as their scope, the type of policy instruments, the use of technology, and compliance mechanisms, to assess their ambitiousness, credibility, and novelty. Second, forewords or press releases of subnational climate mitigation targets are assessed to identify the policy rationale and framing of the targets. Third, we interview cantonal elected officials and civil servants to understand the variations further. Various data regarding economic activities and population are used to see where variations lie.
Preliminary observations show that more ambitious cantons use similar framing of their targets, such as international responsibility, climate justice, fair transition, solidarity, and responsibility to future generations. Interestingly, the Paris Agreement does not seem to be associated with high ambition as it is mentioned by Cantons who have very different levels of ambition. While urban cantons tend to be more ambitious, but we also find major exceptions.
The results of this research are of interest to scholars looking at climate policy in local government and subnational settings. In addition, it provides interesting insights to identify factors promoting novel policy features in local government. Switzerland is an interesting case study as its 26 cantons provide for a lot of variation within a country.