BERLIN — A majority of Swiss citizens on Sunday voted in favor of a bill aimed at introducing new climate measures to sharply curb the rich Alpine nation’s greenhouse gas emissions, first projections indicated.
Projections by the GFS Bern Institute based on early vote counting and released by public broadcaster SRF showed that 58% of voters were in favor of the bill. The margin of error was 3%, SRF reported. It was not clear how many of the votes had already been voted.
Exact results are expected later in the day.
The referendum was sparked by a campaign by scientists and environmentalists to save Switzerland’s iconic glaciers, which are melting away at an alarming rate.
Campaigners initially proposed even more ambitious measures but later backed a government plan that requires Switzerland to achieve “net zero” emissions by 2050. It also sets aside more than $3.357 billion to help wean companies and homeowners off fossil fuels.
The nationalist Swiss People’s Party, which demanded the popular vote, had claimed that the proposed measures would cause electricity prices to rise.
PHOTOS: Swiss vote on climate bill as Alpine nation's iconic glaciers succumb to warming
Backers of the plan argued that Switzerland will be hard-hit by global warming and is already seeing the effects of rising temperatures on its famous glaciers.
“The supporters have reason to rejoice,” Urs Bieri of the GFS Research Institute told SRF. “But by no means everyone is in favor of the law. The argument with the costs has brought many ‘no’ votes.”
Swiss glaciers experienced record melting last year, losing more than 6% of their volume and alarming scientists who say a loss of 2% would once have been considered extreme.
Experts such as Matthias Huss, a glaciologist at the Swiss Institute for Technology in Zurich, have taken to posting dramatic snapshots of retreating glaciers and rockslides from melting permafrost on social media to highlight the changes taking place in the Alps.
“Let’s act as long as we can still prevent the worst,” he recently wrote on Twitter.
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