{"id":2046,"date":"2021-05-27T08:29:24","date_gmt":"2021-05-27T06:29:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wpethzprd.ethz.ch\/energy\/?p=2046"},"modified":"2025-03-27T16:14:45","modified_gmt":"2025-03-27T15:14:45","slug":"climate-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ethz.ch\/energy\/climate-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Our contribution to climate mitigation – What can we do personally and what can Switzerland do?"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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By Christian Schaffner, Anthony Patt and Marco Mazzotti<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Zum vollst\u00e4ndigen Blogpost auf Deutsch.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Today is National Climate Day in Switzerland. We don’t have much time left to reach our climate goals and to implement our promised share in the fight against global warming – but we already have concrete ways to contribute today! Be it in the choice of our next car, the refurbishment of our own home, or the choice of our vacation destination. Switzerland could become a showcase country for technically, economically and socially feasible solutions for a sustainable energy supply. Let’s do it!<\/h3>

We have a long way to go: If we want to reach our goal<\/a> to stop emitting climate-damaging gases into the atmosphere by 2050, we have to transform our energy system. In particular, we must abandon fossil energy sources such as oil and natural gas. The year 2050 seems a long way off, but it\u2019s less than 30 years, which is unfortunately very short in the energy sector if we think, for example, of the lifespan of heating systems in buildings (typically 20 to 25 years). Therefore, we need to act now!<\/p>

To better understand the current situation, it is worth taking a look at the climate-relevant emissions<\/a> in Switzerland and the potential reduction path until 2050:<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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\"\"<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Legend: Climate-relevant Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Switzerland (in Mega-Tons CO2<\/sub> equivalents): net-zero scenario until 2050 [Source: Energy Perspectives 2050+ (SFOE), Prognos AG \/ TEP Energy GmbH \/ INFRAS AG 2020].<\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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The graph shows clearly that we have already achieved a lot since 1990, especially in the household sector. Nevertheless, it shows that climate-relevant emissions must be reduced even more. The high CO2<\/sub> emissions from the “Transport” and “Households & Services” sectors are almost exclusively the result of the use of fossil fuels: gasoline for private cars, diesel for trucks, crude oil and natural gas for heating. These areas should therefore become the main focus of our effort, since emissions in these areas must be reduced to almost zero by 2050. Most of the remaining emissions will still come from agriculture and industry, which are difficult sectors to decarbonize at the source. In order to achieve the net-zero 2050 emissions target, this part will have to be compensated with negative emission technologies, or NET, that are responsible for capturing more CO2<\/sub> than they emit, leading to so-called negative emissions. Examples include technologies to capture CO2<\/sub> from the air, as demonstrated by the ETH spin-off Climeworks<\/a>, or through innovative processes in cement production<\/a>, which another ETH spin-off, Neustark<\/a>, is developing. The process to store captured CO2<\/sub> underground is termed \u201cCarbon Capture and Storage\u201d (CCS).<\/p>

But what can we do by ourselves?<\/h4>

Let’s focus on the energy part for now: what can each of us actually do to make a difference? Some examples of what we can do:<\/p>