24. Mai 2022

How to strengthen climate policy through cantonal parlaments

Maurus Pfalzgraf

With great power, comes great responsibility. As a member of the parliament in Schaffhausen I want to ask myself, how I can live up to the responsibility of strengthening our climate policies.

How to politicise in a minority

Schaffhausen votes conservative [1]. The Liberals (FDP) have a majority if they work together with the Swiss People’s Party (SVP). Regarding climate policies this often means, that policies will not be accepted by the Parliament, if there are any costs involved [2][3][4]. The only motions which were passed included the introduction of a law on energy and the consideration of the GHG-Emissions into the road tax. Personally, I think that very few motions related to climate change were handed in. I have not brought a big contribution neither. After my first year in the parliament, I was disappointed by the fact that I only passed one motion. I want to improve, therefore I set myself the goal to hand in a motion every month and make sure that at least half of them are declared substantial.

However, if you want to pass something in the conservative parliament of Schaffausen you have to restrain the topics you are addressing. Indeed, only topics for which you can find an ally from the right has a chance to pass. Therefore, ideas for policies which are accepted in the right political spectrum but are effective nevertheless are urgently needed. As such a policy is found change is possible quite fast, as shown by the pandemic.

Ideas so far

The answer is in the wind. No matter where you are in Schaffhausen, you can see the wind turbines turning with the wind. They are located close to the border, but on German ground. As I see them, I am always reminded of the fact, that also in Schaffhausen, there should be some and they should be spinning. The project for the German and Swiss turbines started at the same time. But the Swiss ones are far from being built [5]. The root cause is the NIMBY-Problem. “Not in my backyard” is what the people think. The same problem is known with trash, but here there is an adequate solution in building a law [6]. An adaption of this policy is urgently needed, as the government failed drastically to fulfil the goals for electricity production with wind turbines. The goal was to produce 15GWh/a, by 2022 but zero GWh were produced[7].

Figure 2 Overview over the electricity situation in Schaffhausen.
(Sources: Energieanschlusskonzept, Energiestatistik, Umsetzungskonzept Biomasse, PV auf Infrastrukturanlagen, Bericht und Antrag zum Wasserwirtschaftsgesetz)
the certain potential refers to reports that show were the electricity could be produced. For hydro the rhinefall is ment, for PV the potential on cantonal infrastructures, for wind the project at Chroobach, for Biogas the review of the Potential in the whole canton

Drill for heat, not for oil. In our neighbour-Canton, Thurgau, where the right parties are even stronger, the Federal Democratic Union (EDU) is pointing in the direction of geothermal energy [8]. This chance should be taken as an advantage, especially as the goal is to produce 26 GWh/a [9]. There are serious concerns about earthquakes, also in the green party. The tactic is to start slowly with a small request to find out if test borings for the nuclear repository brought new insights in the constitution of the geologig underground [10].

Let the roads produce something else than noise. As a recent report found out, there is the potential to produce about 54 GWh/a [11] of electricity through PV on existing infrastructures. One could think, that after they found out this exact potential and assessed the difficulties, the cantonal energy agency (Energiefachstelle) would do everything it can to use this potential. Particularly as the canton is lagging behind the targets, it set himself (only 26 GWh/a instead of 30 GWh/a) [12]. To catch up and fulfil the goal of 100GWh/a, I propose that the Canton sets itself the target of using at least 35% of the potential of PV by 2035. In order to protect the biodiversity, diverse surfaces should be used first.

Turn (cow) shit into energy. Another report [13] found out already eight years ago, that there is a ppotential of producing 16 GWh/a electricity and 10 GWh/a heat. As the vote to revise the building law in 2015, the energy agency gave up on the financing for biogas plants[14]. As we have powerful right wing parliamentarians[15], who have great knowledge in the field of biogas production[16], the political wind has changed, and this needs to be shown to the energy agency in order to enable the finance for biogas production.

Big data results in big consumption. Once upon a time the plan was to not increase the demand for electricity and stay at 500 GWh/a[17]. This was before that Safehost constructed a datacentre, using 350 GWh/a alone. Although the amount of electricity they use, does not really make sense and does not have a chance to prohibit the consumption. However, in data-centers electricity is used to produce heat in the end. It seems reasonable to make the usage of this heat mandatory. In the building law there already is an article on big consumers, which can be extended to make the usage of at least 80% of the electricity as mandatory.

Figure 41.1 – Figure 2 Overview over the electricity situation in Schaffhausen.
(Sources: Energieanschlusskonzept, Energiestatistik, Umsetzungskonzept Biomasse, PV auf Infrastrukturanlagen, Bericht und Antrag zum Wasserwirtschaftsgesetz)
the certain potential refers to reports that show were the electricity could be produced. For hydro the rhinefall is ment, for PV the potential on cantonal infrastructures, for wind the project at Chroobach, for Biogas the review of the Potential in the whole canton

What to do next?

This is a real question. I am interested in hearing your thoughts on it. Above I wrote about all the ideas I have to strengthen our cantonal climate policy. The goal of this section is to get new ideas from you. Did you hear of any motions which got passed in your Canton? Are you inspired by any policies you read in the climate action plan written by climatestrike that you think could be implemented [18]? Do you think there is an unused potential which can be used? Problems are numerous, but solutions are rare. We know about the climate emergency, we know about the IPCC-reports, but we don’t know which policies will be accepted by the parliament and the popular vote and are effective to fight climate change. I do not think, that in the next election there will be a majority of greens elected. But it already draws down, that the right parties pick up somewhat green topics [19]. Therefore in my opinion, the fastest way to get our homework done is BLABLA BLA. The central question is: how to sell the project of the reduction of GHG to the liberals and conservatives? Because since I am a politician, I agree even more to the quote by Anthony Patt: “They [politicians in particular] all pretend to have a clue, but no one really knows, what the fuck is going on, as the problems we are facing we face them for the very first time.”

So this means, you don’t know less. You are smart, you know a lot. With knowledge comes power with power comes responsibility. The responsibility to contribute. Share your ideas! So I would be thrilled to hear anything from you.

(Maurus@pfalzgraf.ch)

[1] Wikipedia Kantonsparlament, acessed 28.2.2022

[2] Motionen Kanton Schaffhausen Kostenlose Benützung ÖV, acessed 28.2.2022

[3] https://sh.ch/CMS/Webseite/Kanton-Schaffhausen/Beh-rde/Parlament/Der-Kantonsrat/Portal-Kantonsrat—Ratsbetrieb-2307955-DE.html Schaffung gesetzlicher Grundlagen für den Bau grosser Solarstromanlagen auf Dachflächen der öffentlichen Hand, Einführung eines Gebäudeenergieausweises der Kantone (GEAK), acessed 28.2.2022

[4] https://archiv.sh.ch/daten/Motionen-2013.4358.0.html Änderung des ‘Gesetzes über die Strassenverkehrssteuer’,

[5] Newspaper Article , acessed 28.2.2022

[6] Building Law Schaffhausen art. 5, acessed 28.2.2022

[7] https://sh.ch/CMS/Webseite/Kanton-Schaffhausen/Beh-rde/Regierung/Staatskanzlei-26420-DE.html, acessed 28.2.2022

[8] Webpage EDU Thurgau, acessed 28.2.2022

[9] https://sh.ch/CMS/Webseite/Kanton-Schaffhausen/Beh-rde/Regierung/Staatskanzlei-26420-DE.html, acessed 28.2.2022

[10] https://sh.ch/CMS/get/file/cd6f39f2-400a-48c5-80c0-c76b5b67d1d3, acessed 28.2.2022

[11] https://sh.ch/CMS/get/file/5e8e3ddd-c2e0-43e3-af0d-83e3ffe4e6a6, acessed 28.2.2022

[12] https://sh.ch/CMS/get/file/737588a4-bb41-49b8-8edd-317039fcaa24, acessed 28.2.2022

[13] https://sh.ch/CMS/get/file/2938976d-99b5-4ce8-89e3-b220888f26d9, acessed 28.2.2022

[14] Mail from the energy agency from the 09.02.2022

[15] https://www.svp-sh.ch/home/person/andrea-m-ller, acessed 28.2.2022