At the melting Marmolada glaciers in north italy. Photo: Greenpeace - Italy/Alessandro Vasari.
- The temperature rise in Italy is four times higher than in the rest of the world: an increase of 1.4°C in the last 50 years as compared to the world average of 0.7°C for the entire century.
- Rainfall is rapidly decreasing (a 5% reduction was recorded in the last century; with 14 days less yearly rainfall in the southern regions );
- Water resources: our alpine glaciers have lost half of their volume and 30% of their surface area in less than a century.
- Sea: one in three kilometres of our inter-tidal areas is retreating and 33 coastal areas are now at risk of being submerged. Looking at the reaction from the institutional level the climate change conference held in Rome (September 2007) takes centre-stage. The conference represents the largest effort, thus far, on the part of the Italian government and the main "technical" agencies, to address the issue of climate change.
The conference website
(http://www.conferenzacambiamenticlimatici2007.it/) contained a lot of the information reproduced in this article. It is however important to underline the fact that the 2007 conference and the aims it represented was, primarily, pursued by the centre-left government then in power.
After the spring 2008 general election, the new Italian government no longer seems to be promoting environmental policies as one of its top priorities, looking instead to focus more on issues like security, crime and migration.
To promote adaptation, Italy first needs to address its own particular historical problems: hydro-geological risks, coastal protection and the waste of water resources. This is an all-Italian paradox:, contrary to the prevailing situation in most other West European countries Italy remains in the position of still needing to draft its policy response to the question of environmental protection. A number of operative adaptation measures did however emerge from the aforementioned conference:
• Confirm and expand the incentives system for energy savings in the residential sector; begin a programme in support of bio-architecture (bio-building)
• Foster new forms of consumption (water labelling of goods and products)
• Adjust water resources management to the demands of climate change through a pact with agricultural organisations
• Promote traditional cultivation approaches not dependent on the easy availability of water, supporting the cultivation of forests as a form of territorial maintenance
• Address issues in relation to erosion along the extensive Italian coastline
• Apply more firmly the available planning regulations to building projects in river flood plains and in areas at risk from landslides and avalanches
• Provide action for the sustainable management of marine resources; stet up mechanisms for the development of sustainable fishing
• 'Think to the mountain': encourage a form of tourism less linked to the needs of skiing
• Insert into health strategies a variable relating to the new risks connected with climate change and relate this to both the localisation and the functioning of health structures
• Set up an even more efficient system of meteo-climatic early warning in the higher risk areas for floods and landslides
• Increase the level of citizen participation and involvement in policies relating to mitigation and adaptation to climate change (climate day)
• Realize forms of environmental incentives for business and workers
To put into practice such measures Italy needs to foster a stronger and more effective relationship between the local, regional, and national authorities. Unfortunately such a relationship is multifaceted and sometimes contradictory.
The current Italian government is, moreover, against the commitments undertaken on the signing of the Kyoto protocol, though of course Italian governments of every colour have uniformly poor records when it comes to policy implementation in most fields.
In this respect, Italy has experts within the National Agency for the Protection of the Environment (ARPA) that question the direct link between climate change and the transformation of the habitat: "It is difficult to make correlations.
We can say that IT IS LIKELY that some events depend on climate change." Moreover, other national agencies, like the National Civil Protection Agency (CP), currently feel no need to play a role in counteracting climate change, arguing that "climate change is more of an issue for urbanists than for Civil Protection" and; "Our task is not the structural reduction of vulnerabilities, but rather crisis management".
Finally, we have many small municipalities which simply do not possess the instruments to adapt to such transformations: "Now we are in Italy in a time of federalism, of the devolution of power to local authorities. Good, but we should not exaggerate. Our system is based on a network of territorial agencies like the ARPA, CP, volunteers, etc. This is our strength. We do not have to put too much of a burden on the municipalities".
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In conclusion we should take a moment to look to the future. The forecasts of the previous government are pretty gloomy:
• Agricultural production may decline by 22% due to excessive heat and to a decline in water availability;
• Applying the predictions of the Stern Report, in the case of inaction, to Italy, in the likelihood, amply exceeded, that global temperature may rise by only 1.5°C, would result in a figure of 50 billion euro per year being reached simply to counteract the damage produced by climate change.
• To implement the actions that would enable us to cut our greenhouse gas emis-sions we need 3 to 5 billion Euro per year.
• Setting up adaptation measures costs between 1.5 billion and 2 billion Euro per year.
• In conclusion, the difference between the costs of action and inaction is in the order of 10 to 40 times.
The framework of information and data seems clear. What remains unclear however is whether the political will exists within the new Italian government to pursue a pro-Kyoto policy.
By Giulio Tarlao - Researcher at the Institute of International Sociology of Gorizia, Lecturer of Sociology at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Trieste, Italy