A stifling air
This is really the big black spot in Italian ecology: the quality of its air. Among the fifty European cities with the most polluted air, Italian cities account for almost half. And in the five cities that stand out in this field, four are Italian: Cremona, Padua, Venice and Vicenza. As you may have noticed, they are all located in the north of the country. This is the result of a two-speed industrial economic sector, between the south, which is more spared, and the north, which receives the vast majority of industries, but also the most densely populated cities, and therefore with the most cars.
Italy's air quality record is so bad that the European Court of Justice went so far as to condemn it, in November 2020, for non-compliance with directives on fine particles. At issue: almost systematic exceedances of the limits authorized by the EU, and Italy's failure to put in place measures to curb this long-standing problem. However, there is a glimmer of hope: Italy seems to have recently decided to finally take the bull by the horns. Between 1990 and 2015, fine particle emissions fell by more than a quarter, andCO2 emissions by a third. But efforts are still needed, since they remain abnormally high and endanger public health.
When EU laws don't pass
Since 2019, it's decided: the EU is banning single-use plastics. Ciao plastic straws, cotton buds, and other coffee stirrers! If the measure makes the happiness of environmentalists, who applaud the killing of this waste that represents 70% of those stranded in the oceans, in Italy we grind our teeth ... It must be said that the Peninsula alone represents more than 60% of European production! People are worried about the economic fallout and the loss of jobs.
An argument between the Italian political class and the European Union followed. The former considers the measure penalizing for the 280 Italian companies that produce single-use plastic, and the 815 million euros they represent. Especially since the Italian consumer is still struggling to get away from plastic: Italy is the second largest consumer in Europe, and impresses in particular by its consumption of plastic bottles. But the EU is not giving up, and Italy is forced to adopt this law.
The climate catastrophe
With a length of 7,500 km, the coastline of the peninsula is so long that if you unfolded it, it would be the distance between Paris and Mumbai. But while it offers Italy beaches that are world famous, they also threaten it. It is particularly vulnerable to rising water levels, and is even becoming a textbook case, with Venice, its famous historic city, which could end up sinking. If the phenomenon ofacqua alta, the high tide that floods the city every autumn, is natural, it is however increasingly frequent, and increasingly violent. For now, it is the MOSE machine, in reference to Moses, which should save the Serenissima. This system of mobile underwater barriers is activated at each flood, and has already saved Venice 20 times over the year 2021.
However, as efficient as MOSE is, it will not be able to take care of all of Italy, because Venice is far from being an isolated case. In fact, examples of global warming are multiplying in Italy, and are far from being limited to rising waters: the collapse of a glacier in the Italian Alps in the summer of 2022 under record temperatures, the serious drying up of the Po River in the same summer, on which 40% of Italian agriculture depends, increasingly catastrophic years for wine growing, or deadly storms in the Marche region in the fall of 2022.
In fact, with 20,000 deaths since 1999, Italy is the sixth country in the world with the most deaths from natural disasters and the first in Europe. The climate catastrophe does not seem ready to stop there, while, according to the WWF, temperatures in the Mediterranean are rising 20% faster than the global average.
Italy has already cut its greenhouse gas emissions by a fifth since their peak in the early 2000s. But to ensure that the next generation is the one to do it, in 2019 it became the first country in the world to make the study of global warming a mandatory course in school. As a result, little Italians, from primary to high school, now study it for 33 hours a year. As a result of its actions, Italy is now ranked 27th in the Climate Change Performance Index 2021, ranking the countries taking the most action to advance the climate issue.
Waste: a problem that's hard to get rid of
We all remember the waste crisis that has struck Naples on numerous occasions since the 1990s. The garbage strike of 2007, in particular, made headlines around the world, as the capital of Campania was so buried under rubbish bags. This media coverage had the advantage of highlighting real flaws in the Italian waste system. Even today, they are far from being resolved, as we can see with Rome, which in turn is making international headlines, littered with garbage. The reason for the capital's problem: the closure, in 2013, of what was then Europe's largest landfill, because it was far from complying with environmental standards. The only drawback: no alternative has been put in place. The icing on the cake was the fire at one of the city's only two treatment plants, which was processing 900 tonnes of waste a day. Naples and Rome, however, are only symptoms of a long crisis that is affecting the whole country, and particularly its southern half.
The main cause is a lack of infrastructure. Public landfills are inefficient, far from up to standard, and often on the verge of overflowing, when they are not outright illegal dumps. To cope with the long-lasting crisis, and in the absence of suitable infrastructures, Italy has opted to export its waste to other countries. Unfortunately, this is an increasingly difficult solution, as there are fewer and fewer countries willing to accept such burdens, as illustrated by China, which put a stop to indiscriminate waste exports in 2018, much to Italy's dismay.
For the time being, Italy is still struggling to find solutions to this crisis, which has dragged on for decades. However, to avoid continuing to overload its landfills, the country is focusing more and more on recycling, and is proving to be far more efficient in this area! It is the European champion in paper and cardboard recycling. While 70% of such packaging is recycled on average in Europe, Italy has raised this score to 90%... and is thus 15 years ahead of the targets set by the European Union!
Italian protected areas
Italy has 25 natural parks on its territory, the South being a little more spoiled than the North in this respect. It is in the South, between the borders of Basilicata and Calabria, that the largest national park is located: the Pollino National Park. In the heart of its almost 2,000 km2 of surface, the park hides a treasure: the oldest tree in Europe. This Bosnian pine(Pinus heldreichii), which scientists have nicknamed Italus, is 1,230 years old! The history of the park is closely linked to that of this species of tree, since it was to protect the last specimens in Italy that it was decided, in 1985, to turn what was then a simple regional park into a national park.
The Cilento National Park, also in the south, this time in Campania, is the second largest Italian natural park. However, it has nothing to envy to the first one, since it is classified as a world heritage site by UNESCO. If it has this honor, it is because in addition to exceptional landscapes, it houses a rich historical heritage and traces of human occupation dating back 250,000 years. The importance of the park does not end there, since it also hosts, along its three ridges, 10% of endangered plant species, including Primula palinuri, a small primrose endemic to this tiny area of about 100 km of southern Italy.
Another Unesco World Heritage Site, well known to hikers, is the Dolomites. The majestic Alpine massif reaches an altitude of 3,343 meters at its highest point. Administratively, it does not represent a whole, but is in fact divided into several protected areas, including the Dolomites Friuli Nature Park, the Schlern-Rosengarten Nature Park, the Dolomites Bellunese National Park, and the Tre Cime Nature Park. Together, they constitute a remarkable protected area, where many alpine species, such as the Alpine Ibex, the brown bear, the lynx, the badger and the marmot, flourish.
