environment

In Italy, as we know, plans are announced but not respected.This is the greatest risk that hovers over the PNIEC, the National Integrated Plan for Energy and Climate that the Meloni government sent to the European Commission in recent days.The strategic document that defines a country's medium and long-term energy and climate policy, writes the Ministry of the Environment and Energy Security, "confirms the objectives achieved in the first proposal transmitted in June 2023, in some cases even exceeding the community targets, in particular on renewable energy". With the sending, which took place on 1 July (and a correction which we will talk about shortly), Italy is one of the few European countries - together with Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Sweden - to have respected the deadline set by the Commission .But he did it to the detriment of transparency and participation, setting a month-long consultative questionnaire in March 2024, without adequate publicization of t...

There are those who defined it as a "vexatious limit", those who spoke of a "demagogic proposal", those who instead presented it as "a new idea of ​​civilization".In recent days the debate has heated up on cities30, where the speed limit for all vehicles is set at 30 kilometers per hour:it is a new model that has already taken hold in many cities around the world, and which is now also appearing in Italy.To become the first major Italian city at 30 kilometers per hour was Bologna, which in 2022 approved the address lines for the implementation of the plan:the checks began on Tuesday 16 January, and with them the controversies.“I remember well that the first objections to the city30 were that 'the limits will not be enforced anyway', but if the controls are announced the Punic wars will break out”, said the city councilor Simona Larghetti, who had already worked on the first campaign since 2014 on zones 30.“Only in a coun...

It seems prehistoric but in 2015, at the time of COP21 and the Paris Agreements, among the commitments set to keep the increase in temperatures within 1.5 °C compared to the pre-industrial era there was also the allocation of 100 billion euros per year by the richest states towards the countries of the so-called south of the world. It was, and is, a key point in climate finance.As explains ECCO, the Italian climate think tank, “the term applies to financial resources dedicated to addressing climate change by all public and private actors from global to local scales, including international financial flows to developing countries to assist them in addressing climate change.” For Italy the main public instrument to pursue the objective of the Paris Agreements is the Italian Climate Fund:until 2026 it will have a total budget of 4.4 billion euros, in addition to 40 million euros per year from 2027 for non-repayable contributions and management expenses.Established w...

The weekly round-up on the climate crisis and data on carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. Death and devastation.Heavy rains in southern Brazil they provoked massive floods and landslides in Rio Grande do Sul, the southernmost state of Brazil.More than half of the state's 497 cities were affected by the storms, with roads and bridges destroyed in several areas.The storms also caused landslides and the collapse of a hydroelectric dam near the town of Bento Gonçalves, killing 30 people.Authorities said a second dam in the area was also at risk of collapsing due to rising water levels. “It is the fourth environmental disaster of this type in a year, after the floods of July, September and November 2023.Flooding across the state has surpassed that recorded during the historic deluge of 1941,” remember AP.The Guaiba River, which runs through the city of 1.4 million inhabitants, he reached the record level of 5.3 meters. “Residents of several...

The weekly round-up on the climate crisis and data on carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. It took a red spot on the European Space Agency (ESA) cartography and a podium placement in a ranking of little relevance, as if it were an Olympics competition, to make the poor air quality of the Po Valley news.Which isn't so much news, it's everyday life in certain periods of the year and should be newsworthy due to its periodicity.But it is enough to make people talk about a systemic issue once again in terms of emergency and inevitability and trigger the angry reaction of mayors and the usual brawl of comments which in the end only generate noise and confusion, shifting attention from the real crux of the matter :namely that air pollution is “an important public health issue that seriously threatens the well-being of people and our environment”, as stated just last October by Maria Neira, Director of the Environment, Climate Change and Health Department of the W...