Floods and Emilia-Romagna. Floods and Spain. Floods and climate crisis. How and how complicated is it to take note of this for a large part of politics? On what remains of Valencia and – going backwards – on the serious drought in the South and on the fourth devastating flood in Emilia-Romagna in a year and a half, a carpet is laid so as not to see, so as not to admit that yes, we have work to do Do. Urgently.
That with the climate crisis extreme events have increased exponentially in number and intensity is a fact that can no longer be disputed, with all due respect to the deniers who still today wrote ferocious comments under our posts dedicated to the disaster in Valencia. And with all due respect, also, to the politics of Italian salons, both small and large negotiations international, still subjugated – not too covertly – by the fossil lobbies.
But explain to him that the water that feeds them extreme rain it is also the consequence of the greater evaporation caused by heat waves, which thus also intensifies the conditions drought in many areas of our country.
A vicious circle that will not be interrupted if the word is still in the text of the budget bill Climate appears twice and, on the contrary, article 120 creates a ten-year fund of 24 billion euros (from 2027 to 2036), centralized at the MEF, for generic interventions in favor of investments and infrastructures, without even guidelines on the projects to be financed and their purposes.
What Italy needs (to save our lives and not have a “second Valencia”)
Mitigation before adaptation. The floods that have hit Italy in recent months have been devastating, but the one in Valencia is something impressive.
As Antonello Pasini of the CNR told us yesterday, if we do not do mitigation, that is, if we do not reduce greenhouse gas emissions, extreme events will be increasingly frequent and intense and adaptation will no longer be sufficient.
Well, very simple: the money should be allocated to interventions aimed at mitigationtherefore to the reduction of climate-changing emissions, and then toadaptationtherefore to actions on the territory of profound adaptation and change and of safety.
We know that more funds will be needed to implement the true decarbonisation – they then say from the WWF – without the distractions of nuclear power and carbon capture and storage, in sectors where fossil fuels make no sense in the face of immediately available alternatives.
For now, the 2024 Budget, in article 92, only establishes a Fund “destined for financing reconstruction interventions and related needs”. And with the big title “Measures relating to natural disasters and emergencies (Reconstruction Fund)” in reality the fact is hidden that the taps will be closed for the next years 2025 and 2026.
And the National Adaptation Plan? It was approved a year ago and then forgotten, we have reiterated this several times. But in any case, according to experts it would be a deficient plan that does not address either the priorities or the sources of financing.
The certain thing? It is that we should no longer intervene only after devastation and emergencies, but rather prevention and planning. They seem like big words thrown around at random sea magnum of incompetence and jokers. Shall we make a move?