Swiss glaciers are melting rapidly due to climate change
Thousands of demonstrators welcomed four climate activists in the Swiss capital of Bern. These had wandered through the country for weeks for their cause.
Thousands of demonstrators in the Swiss capital of Bern welcomed four climate activists who had spent weeks wandering the country for their cause. The ecologist Julia Steinberger, the lawyer Irene Wettstein, the infectiologist Valerie d’Acremont and the political scientist Bastienne Joerchel ended their march on the square in front of the seat of government and parliament in Bern, as reported by the Swiss news agency Keystone-SDA.
Accordingly, almost 4000 supporters of the campaign gathered there. The four scientists set out on April 1 in Geneva on their so-called Blue March for the climate. On their 224-kilometer tour, they made stopovers in many Swiss towns. On the individual stages, they were accompanied by dozens, sometimes hundreds, of supporters, mostly women. According to the SDA, around 150 people ran on the last stage.
With the campaign, Steinberger, Wettstein, d’Acremont and Joerchel wanted to persuade the Swiss government to do more to combat global warming. In an online petition, they are demanding that the wealthy Alpine country make it an “absolute priority” to halve its greenhouse gas emissions before 2030 and become carbon neutral by 2050.
“Our political demands are urgent,” Steinberger told Swiss radio station RTS. Switzerland is “very, very far behind” in climate policy and has even taken steps backwards in complying with the Paris climate agreement. But everyone must participate in the fight against global warming.
Climate change is leading to rapid melting of the glaciers in the Swiss Alps. Among other things, glaciers are of great importance as water reservoirs and thus also for hydroelectric power plants, from which more than 60 percent of the energy generated in Switzerland comes.
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