The air conditioning stays on until the evening, the car leaves after hours in the sun, the windows close in the face of yet another violent storm. Climate change, for most Italians, has now lost that vague consistency of a distant problem. It has entered homes, daily commutes, summers that seem to get longer and bill bills. Even the numbers are starting to reflect this less than reassuring familiarity.
This is the picture that emerges from Istat’s SDGs 2026 Report, the annual monitoring that measures Italy’s progress towards the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations 2030 Agenda. In the chapter dedicated to the fight against climate change, the Institute brings together citizens’ perception, temperature trends and greenhouse gas emissions.
In 2025, 68% of people aged 14 and over listed climate change, the increase in the greenhouse effect and the ozone layer among the top five environmental concerns. Almost seven out of ten Italians. The percentage drops slightly compared to the 69.2% recorded in 2024, still maintaining a clear distance from the 58.6% of 2014. In just over ten years, climate sensitivity has gained almost ten percentage points and the differences between regions have reduced.
The data measures a perceived priority, rather than a permanent state of fear. It tells how many people place the climate among the environmental problems that deserve greater attention. A choice that developed as heat waves, floods, droughts and fires occupied more and more space in daily life. In 2024 the average temperature on the Italian mainland was 1.33 °C higher than the climatological average for the period 1991-2020. At a global level, the anomaly stopped at 1.04 °C, confirming the particular exposure of the Mediterranean basin.
Ten years of growing concern
The slight retreat recorded in the last year leaves a long trend intact. The climate now firmly occupies the top positions among Italians’ environmental concerns. The theme crosses territories, generations and social conditions with a much wider diffusion than that observed a decade ago.
This awareness is growing within a country that is seeing its landscape change. In 2024, around 3,800 fires affected almost 53 thousand hectares, with Sicily, Calabria, Campania and Lazio among the most affected regions. In the same year, 2.2% of the population lived in areas characterized by high or very high landslide danger. Numbers that enter collective perception through broken roads, burned forests, evacuations, damaged crops and days spent looking for a cooler room.
Alongside the concern, the emissions curve is moving. The direct link between citizens’ sensitivity and the reduction of greenhouse gases remains open, because industrial production, energy consumption, prices, regulations and technological transformations come into play. The two trajectories, meanwhile, tell of an Italy that is more attentive to the climate and an economy that emitted less in 2024 compared to the previous year.
Overall emissions from the Italian economy fell to 386 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent, eleven million less than in 2023. The reduction was 2.8%, after the 5.9% decline recorded the previous year. The level reached is even lower than the 389 million tonnes of 2020, when closures, restrictions and reductions in travel had frozen a substantial part of activities.
For each inhabitant, this amounts to 6.5 tonnes of CO₂ equivalent, a value that is back in line with that of 2020 after the increases observed between 2021 and 2023. In the same period, GDP grew by 0.8%, while the intensity of emissions per unit of product went from 206.3 to 199.1 tonnes per million euros. The economy therefore produced slightly more while using, overall, less greenhouse gases for every euro generated.
The strongest cut comes from energy
The decline was mainly driven by the electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply sector. In 2024 it represented 13.8% of overall emissions and recorded a reduction of 16.7% in just one year. Manufacturing activities, responsible for 21.8% of the total, cut their contribution by 2.1%. Transportation and warehousing fell 4.7%.
The composition of climate-changing gases remains dominated by carbon dioxide, which accounts for 82.4%. Methane covers 11.4%, nitrous oxide 4.3% and fluorinated gases 1.9%. Methane retains a particularly strong role in agriculture, forestry and fishing, as well as wastewater and waste management.
These data show a transformation that passes through power plants, industrial plants, heating systems and the technologies used to produce energy. Reducing emissions requires infrastructure and investments capable of making even the simplest, most accessible and convenient choice less polluting. Awareness can drive change. Without reliable public transport, modern networks and efficient buildings, that push risks stopping at the front gate.
The private car opens a crack
Families themselves show the most uncomfortable part of the picture. Their emissions represent 27.1% of the total and increased by 3.5% in 2024. The increase derives mainly from self-account mobility, which grew by 5.2%, while heating and other domestic consumption produced a more limited increase, equal to 0.8%.
The green push from below exists in perception, in requests made to politicians, in purchases and in habits that slowly change. However, the car continues to occupy an enormous space. Millions of people use it to reach places poorly served by public transport, take shifts that are incompatible with transport timetables or move between suburbs built around the roadways. The crack lies right there: a citizen can be sincerely worried about the climate and start the engine every morning because the city around him has left him with few alternatives.
Reducing household emissions therefore requires something more robust than individual goodwill. We need frequent buses, punctual regional trains, truly connected cycle paths, less energy-intensive homes and sustainable heating systems even for those with modest incomes. The change in habits goes better when it finds an already open path.
The transition now moves billions
Climate transformation has already taken on a considerable economic dimension. Between 2016 and 2023, production linked to climate change mitigation went from 21.4 to 112.6 billion euros. The added value generated grew from 9 to 44.6 billion, reaching 2.1% of GDP. In the same period, investments by businesses, public administrations and families rose from 9.8 to 103.3 billion euros.
These figures include renewable energy, building efficiency, electric and hybrid vehicles, equipment for emission containment, material recovery, forestry management and interventions intended to increase the capacity of soils and vegetation to absorb CO₂. A supply chain now large enough to impact the national economy, also driven by European standards on very low consumption buildings and incentives for energy renovations.
68% of Italians have already put the climate among their priorities. Emissions have started to fall again, energy is changing, investments are running high. Millions of cars remain on the road, houses that are difficult to heat and territories where a bus still retains the elusive charm of a mythological creature. The fear has already arrived. Now it’s up to the tracks, networks, boilers and cities to stop making it travel alone.
