Historical Analysis of Institutional Regimes in Switzerland ... - IDHEAP

16
Policy design: It is possible to identify three different types of air policy in Switzerland (Knoepfel
and Varone 2000). In the 1960s, air pollution was perceived as a neighbourhood and later as local
problem involving smoke, soot and, at a later stage, sulphur dioxide, which in the event of
unfavourable weather conditions (inversion) could cause damage to health and, in extreme cases,
increased mortality. The causes included outmoded commercial and industrial plants and coal and
oil-fired domestic heating systems whose emissions were ejected into the atmosphere at low levels.
The aim of this policy which focused on environmental impacts or immissions was the paradigmatic
“Blaue Himmel über der Ruhr”[“Blue Sky over the Ruhr”] (Brüggmeier/Rommelspacher 1992). The
central intervention hypothesis for these clean-air policies was the necessity to bring about an
improvement in the spatio-temporal distribution of pollutants in the air (transmissions hypothesis).
Correspondingly, the famous industrial chimneys, regional planning divestment (transfer of industry
from urban areas) and smog alarm policies were developed. The aim of these policies was,
therefore, to control the sources of emissions in space and time. They implemented agglomerationspecific
fuel regulations for the large group of domestic heating emitters and individual orders for
increases in chimney heights for the relatively small number of large-scale emitters. The central
instrument consisted in police orders and prohibitions.
During the next phase in the air regime trajectory from around the mid-1980s, air policies were
extended to include the area of emissions. Science and politics increasingly engaged in ecosystembased
arguments, and the question of material flows through various environmental media moved
centre-stage. According to this approach, all emissions of pollutants not only cause dangerous
impacts or imisssions in the surrounding airspace but also cause damage at a considerable distance
from the source of the emissions through polluted precipitation (acid rain) and can, therefore, result in
the pollution of surface waters or ground water carriers and ultimately cause damage to soil
ecosystems. The main triggers for this new perception was the acidification of Scandinavian and
Canadian surface waters and Waldsterben which was mainly observed in northern Europe (mid-
1980s). The aim of these clean-air policies consisted in defining the global volume of pollutants
emitted (SO 2 , NO x and organic pollutants) and reduce them by means of suitable control measures.
Typical for this policy is, for example, the target formulation by the Swiss Federal Council, whereby
SO 2 and NO x emissions were to be reduced to 1950 or 1960 levels. All emitters of air pollutants
were now viewed as air polluters. “... irrespective of the imission situation all over the country”
emissions were to be reduced (“prevention principle” in accordance with Article 11, Paragraph 2 of
the Federal Law on the Protection of the Environment of 1983). Emitters from agglomeration areas,
however, were also subject to additional obligations to reduce emissions reductions if it proved
impossible to observe the relevant imission limit values (Article 9 of the Clean Air Decree of 1985).
Initially the transport sector was excluded here. Orders and prohibitions remained the preferred
instruments. However, the provision of technological information (persuasive mode of intervention)
and direct promotion of new clean-air technologies and their use through financial incentives
(incentive modes of intervention) assumed greater importance. Conversely, direct regulative
intervention was increasingly abandoned in favour of contract-like agreements between authorities
and companies.
In the 1990s, the problem of air pollution was finally perceived as an agglomeration-specific mobility
and global climate problem and the emphasis in clean-air policy now shifted to transport and traffic.
It was observed that little or no reduction had been achieved in NO x pollution and the recently
discovered health risk of PM 10 particles and ozone pollution in urban areas, even in countries
(including Switzerland) which introduced mandatory catalytic converters for their vehicles in the