CIPRA representatives:

Personal tools

  Search filter  

Demands

The countries in the Alps must take all the necessary measures to slow down climate change. At the same time they must prepare for global warming and mitigate its consequences. Intelligent, sustainable action is essential. All programmes must be checked for sustainability: are they environmentally and socially acceptable? Are the benefits greater than the negative consequences? Climate protection is a matter of life and death for the Alps – but nothing is gained if this triggers other environmental problems. CIPRA demands actions in the key areas of energy, protection of nature, transport, building and renovation, tourism, spatial planning, agriculture, forestry, water and energy self-sufficiency at the regional level.
  • Healthy, natural forests: responding to climate change! cc.alps: CIPRA's demands for forest management

    Teaser

    As forestry measures have long-term effects, adaptation of the forests to new climate conditions is urgently needed - but it should be initiated with great caution. The carbon storage ability of forests has to be exploited. Wood should first be used as a raw and building material; only under certain circumstances it should be used for heating. Short regional exploitation cycles are to be created. Natural forests should be fostered as they are more resilient to climate change. Forest owners who in the interest of climate protection give up part of their earnings should be compensated. Finally targeted research into practical climate adaptation measures has to become an important long-term task.

    Read more…

  • Improvements in efficiency instead of damage to the environment! cc.alps: CIPRA's demands on the subject of water

    Teaser

    The rivers of the Alps provide 170 million people with water. Climate change will greatly reduce the availability of water in the Alps and beyond, with less rain, longer dry periods in summer and greatly reduced snowfalls in winter among the predicted consequences. The demands made of this natural resource will increase accordingly, as will competition between the various user groups. Today only about 10% of the rivers and streams of the Alps can be considered ecologically intact, i.e. they are neither polluted nor over-engineered nor compromised in terms of their flow regimes. The ecological quality of waterways and related habitats therefore calls for improvement, not further impairment. We cannot permit the last rivers to become engineered structures or depleted by the excessive abstraction of water.

    Read more…

  • cc.alps: CIPRA's demands for agriculture

    Teaser

    The agricultural sector is directly affected by climate change impacts but it also contributes to the release of greenhouse gases (GHG) and rising concentrations of GHG in the atmosphere. A sustainable climate response strategy in the field of agriculture involves anticipating, planning and long-term thinking from farm level to transnational level. Prominent fields of activity are sustainable land and soil management, sustainable water management, managing manure and soil carbon as well as organic agriculture as an overall strategy. As agriculture is a highly subsidized economic sector, subvention policy can be used as a lever to guide the sector to sustainability and climate neutrality.

    Read more…

  • Only climate-friendly tourism is sustainable: cc.alps - CIPRA’s demands for tourism in climate change

    Teaser

    Climate change is a major challenge to Alpine tourism. It has to adapt to climate change and at the same time become more climate-friendly. There is a particularly large potential for reduction of CO2 emissions in the key areas of traffic and energy. Tourism is a branch of the economy which is heavily subsidized. Therefore public policy can and must direct developments towards sustainability through the support given to tourism. The present discussion about developments in the tourism industry is dominated by the large chair lift companies which are essentially fixed on ski tourism and the maintenance of the status quo. But focusing only on snow and skiing means promoting a capital-intensive, highly technological form of Alpine tourism and a monoculture. This is neither climatologically nor environmentally sustainable.

    Read more…

  • cc.alps: CIPRA Demands – Energy self-sufficient regions

    Teaser

    Not having to depend on energy imports: this vision holds great fascination for many regions. Self-sufficiency is “in.” There are already many very positive approaches and examples of attempts to go down this road. At the heart of all the concepts is the idea of meeting demand through regional renewable sources of energy, saving energy and using energy more efficiently. Anyone who systematically takes this approach in an attempt to create an energy self-sufficient region changes the face of their region and its structures – to the benefit of their own economy, society and the environment.

    Read more…

  • cc.alps: CIPRA Demands on Spatial Planning

    Teaser

    The Alps are different. The Alpine range is characterized by special features that need to be taken into account in spatial development and climate protection.

    Read more…

  • cc.alps: CIPRA demands on transport

    Teaser

    Transport, in particular by car and truck, is one of the main causes of climate change. In the Alpine countries transport accounts for more than 25 percent of the release of greenhouse gases and is of special importance in the increase of these gases since 1990. A wrong development, running counter to the political objective to reduce exhaust emissions. In the Alps, the percentage of journeys made by car is higher than European average.

    Read more…

  • cc.alps: CIPRA Demands on Nature Protection

    Teaser

    When climate changes, nature feels it. Mountain areas are particularly sensitive, and the greatest losses in terms of plant and animal species may occur precisely there. According to scientific estimates, almost every second plant species in the Alps is threatened with extinc-tion by 2100. For the flora with the highest number of varieties in Central Europe this would be an enormous loss. Because of global warming, also well-known animal species such as the Alpine ibex, the snow grouse and the mountain hare will experience far worse living con-ditions in the Alps.

    Read more…

  • cc.alps: CIPRA Demands on Energy

    Teaser

    In order to limit global warming, first of all it is important that we use energy more efficiently. Yet this will not be enough for operating in a way that climate can sustain. We must radically change our energy consumption and our consumption of energy-intensive goods and services. Experience shows that consumption only goes down when clear political signals are sent - which include legislative initiatives, rewarding energy saving and punishing waste. The switch from fossil to renewable energies must be forced - but not to the detriment of nature. Biomass production, the installation of wind power turbines and new hydroelectric power stations in the Alps hide many potential conflicts. The environmental, social and economic consequences of climate projects must be carefully assessed and compared.

    Read more…