The most Important Italian natural catastrophes in the last decade

An overview to Italian prevention plans

We'll be discussing the contribution of Italy in the prevention of climate change and the measures that the Italian government is applying in order to avoid it.

Climate Change is here and it is roaring! Quite a few countries worldwide have experience catastrophic events due to ongoing climatic imbalances. It has been recorded that in 2018 almost 315 Natural Disasters occurred around the world. For instance, let's take the violent wildfires in Greece or the most recent ones in Australia. Only in the last occurrence, 10,300 fatalities​ were reported in addition of more than 10 animal species being added to the risk-of-extinction list . Quite appalling, isn't it?

Let’s have a look at the most famous hazardous events in Italy in the last decade:

• 2006: Severe earthquakes in Abruzzo. Most famously, L'Aquila was hit by a magnitude 6.1-earthquake that left 60,0000 people homeless in addition of making 300 victims.

• Ongoing issue: Floods in the south of Italy

• 2018/2019: Tornadoes in Puglia

• 2018/2019: South of Italy territories that face the Mediterrean waves height

• reached 5 meters

• 2019: Severe flood event in Venice named Acqua Alta in evince

The tragedies listed above are only the tip of the iceberg of the natural catastrophes that occurred in Italy in the past decade.

Clearly, Italy is in a state of emergency due to ongoing issues of flooding, earthquakes and violent rainfall especially in southern regions, worsened by the Mediterranean weather and poor urban planning.

One might therefore wonder, what policies is the Italian government crafting in order to prevent such tragedies to happen? but most of all, where is Italy failing?

1. Italy is surely not at the forefront for what concerns both urban planning and investment on climate change research. Governmental infrastructures fail in the task of prevention planning.

2. Rather than investing in research to prevent natural disaster, the government spends most of its budget on containing and reversing the damages inflicted by such disasters.

3. Illegal urban planning exposes population to higher risk of floods and avalanches. Urban development can create natural catastrophes due to weak soil conditions not suitable for the building of new urban areas.

The main Italian policy for Climate Change Adaptation

1. Italy Climate ADAPT- The NAP (Italian National Adaptation Plan for Climate Change) is a plan first established in 2015 and is in constant process of change due to costar changes in our climate .

The main goals of this policy are:

● “Providing institutional guidance to national and local authorities for the elaboration of regional strategies or plans and for the integration of climate change adaptation within spatial and sectoral planning” (Climate ADAPT, 2019).

● “Providing an indication of roles for implementing integrated adaptation actions. It also defines the possible sources of funding and assess the necessary financial and human resources. A possible financial resources for adaptation can be obtained from the application of the Directive 2003/87/CE (art. 3) concerning the setting up of the “carbon market” for trading CO2 allowances” (Climate ADAPT, 2019).

● Improving monitoring, Reporting and Evaluation systems

In addition, the most relevant 2019 Italian policy regarding climate change are :

• Enel decarbonisation plan 2020-2022: “Decarbonisation of the global generation fleet will account for 50% of total planned investments, with 14.4 billion euros devoted to the accelerated deployment of new renewable capacity and the progressive substitution of coal generation. By 2022, the Group is expected to develop 14.1 GW of new renewable capacity (+22% vs. previous plan) and reduce coal capacity and production by 61% and 74%, respectively, vs. 2018. The share of renewables in total capacity is due to reach 60% in three years, driving upwards the generation fleet’s profitability as well as increasing CO2–free production to 68% in 2022” (Enel, 2019).

• Enel Electrification plan 2020-2022: ”Around 1.2 billion euros of capex will address the Electrification of consumption, leveraging on Enel’s expanded and diversified retail customer base, as well as on efficiencies associated with the platformization of Group activities. Investments are expected to yield 0.4 billion euros in EBITDA growth and position Enel for the future uptake of electrification-driven consumption” (Enel, 2019).

• Enel Ecosystems and Platforms plan 2020-2022: “ 1.1 billion euros to support decarbonisation and electrification” (Enel, 2019).

This policy brings hope in the Italian management of climate change and policy making as regarding decarbonisation. This new policy seems to place Italy at the forefront of climate change change innovation. However, will the Italian government live up to its word? Unfortunately, this question remains as relevant as ever.