“Non-ideological ecological transition”?Giorgia Meloni's imaginary enemies and the wasted opportunity at COP28

The Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, he spoke on the morning of December 2nd at United Nations Climate Change Conference, underway in Dubai (COP28).The Prime Minister claimed Italy's role in the decarbonisation process and in the effort to limit the increase in global temperature to within 1.5 °C.But he did so in the framework of a speech in which he intended to reiterate his approach to climate change and the energy transition:"pragmatic", "free from useless radicalism", "non-ideological".

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These watchwords are the ones that have always characterized right-wing discourse on climate and the environment.If we evaluated them only for their literal meaning we would not be able to understand why they return so frequently.In fact, taken like this, who wouldn't make them their own?Who would not agree that the fight against global warming, or any other action in any other field, must be pragmatic?Who wouldn't claim not to be "ideological"?Saying that we shouldn't be ideological is like declaring ourselves in favor of freedom.And who would ever declare himself an enemy of freedom?Nobody.Just as no one would define themselves as an enemy of the environment.

Giorgia Meloni's words therefore fall within a precise rhetoric that aims to convey the usual message. Last July, in a greeting addressed to the Spanish far-right party Vox, Meloni had indicated an enemy:"ultra-ecological fanaticism". The words and polemical expressions change, but the message is always the same.In the universe of values ​​and in the program of the Italian right, "radicalism" and "fanaticism" remain much worse problems than climate change.An enemy is constructed specifically to be evoked in every speech and to justify one's positions, rather than defending them through political or technical arguments.

For example, a "radicalism-free" approach, says Meloni, would be to promote technological neutrality in the transportation sector.In her speech at COP28 Giorgia Meloni confirmed the position of the Italian government on the issue, which is to support biofuels.Technological neutrality would therefore be this:emphasize the centrality of a few technological solutions, while putting a spanner in the works of the entire transition process.And therefore to the fight against climate change.The government of Giorgia Meloni, in fact, he had contested the decision to ban the sale of cars with combustion engines from 2035 in the European Union.

On the one hand, therefore, the right takes sides without hesitation for products, such as biofuels, which will most likely be used in future especially in air and maritime transport;on the other hand, it does not promote policies that accelerate the diffusion of technology which, like it or not, will have a decidedly preponderant role and on which the automotive industries have already bet billions in investments: electric cars.This is the way in which the right thinks of promoting "environmental sustainability that does not compromise the economic and social sphere".All this is a perfect example - and there are others - of that ideological approach that the prime minister says she wants to counter.

The scam of conservative ecology, the green thinking of the right in power

In her first year in government Giorgia Meloni spoke very little about climate change.When it happened, it was almost always done so as not to name it and to use slogans like the ones mentioned.While Meloni attacks the ideology of others, his substantial silence on the climate says everything about his own.On Blue suitcase I talked about the "conservative ecology", a sort of right-wing green thought that would like to be an alternative to what is defined as dominant.In reality it is a jumble of vague and confused ideas, whose function is reduced to that of a reservoir of polemical slogans against environmentalism.As I wrote, "rather than providing conservatives with coherent and organized thinking on environmental issues, conservative ecology seems to serve to liquidate them and consign them to irrelevance."

This thought draws its inspiration from denialist and anti-scientific positions on climate change.And denialism is exactly what is found in the recent outbursts of exponents of the current government's parties, not just the Brothers of Italy.Just a few weeks ago, during an interview there President of Arpa Lombardia, nominated by Fratelli d'Italia, said she does not believe climate change is caused by human activities.A denialist thesis to all intents and purposes.

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Last July even the Minister of the Environment, Picket Fratin, a member of Forza Italia (which should be the moderate wing of the government), stated that he did not want to enter into a (non-existent) "debate between deniers and catastrophists", which in his opinion should be left to the technicians.«Is it only man's fault, as the catastrophists think?We leave the debate to the technicians."A disconcerting statement.

In practice, the current Minister of the Environment of the Italian Republic he espoused one of the main denialist theses, that is, that science is unable to establish and quantify the responsibility of human beings for current climate change.At the same time, the minister never misses an opportunity to reiterate his commitment and that of the government in achieving the emissions reduction objectives.Too bad those goals would be a total nonsense, if there really was still an ongoing "debate" like the one in which the minister does not want to get involved.Pichetto Fratin's words created very little sensation.Certainly, far lower than what a hypothetical "skeptical" statement on vaccines by the Minister of Health would have generated.

It goes without saying that even in Pichetto Fratin's speech the lion's share was the controversy over "ecological fanaticism".The framework was given by the claim to be in a "middle ground" between catastrophism and denialism, another old leitmotiv. We distance ourselves, in words, from the second, while we identify the first with "ecological fanaticism" when, in reality, it is nothing other than the position of science.That current climate change is 100% anthropic is not in fact the opinion of presumed catastrophists, but that of scientific community.

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The Italian right does not want, and perhaps still cannot, resolve its ambiguities, because it needs to cling to rhetorical loopholes that are useful in motivating certain positions before public opinion.Today, despite itself, it finds itself managing climate policies.She is therefore forced to keep her foot in both shoes.While announcing that Italy will contribute 100 million euros to the fund to support the countries most vulnerable to the effects of climate change (good), Giorgia Meloni wastes the opportunity, represented by COP28, to send the world a finally clear message:that the problem of Italy and humanity is the reality of climate change, made up of ecosystem impacts and heavy economic costs, not the ghost of "ultra-ecological fanaticism";that it is necessary to stop global warming through drastic and rapid reductions in emissions, as reiterated by the IPCC;that all this is true pragmatism and is also science, not "ideological radicalism".The result is that instead of a message of responsibility and urgency, we now read agency headlines reporting yet another sterile assault against one's imaginary enemies.