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If 2020 was the year of the handbrake for environmental battles, 2021 must necessarily be that of break with the past, despite Covid and, even more, the emergency has been overcome. The year of laws that have been waiting for too long in Parliament and ‘uncomfortable’ measures. This is what they ask environmental associations, taking stock of the next objectives (from war to disposable to ok to close ecoreati, going through Salvamare and the decrees ‘end of Waste’). And they do it with a look missed opportunities in 2020. “Because of bureaucratic delays, political skirmishes, often instrumental opposition, but also because of the related health crisis in Covid-19 ”, he explains to ilfattoquotidiano.it Luca Iacoboni, responsible for Greenpeace’s Energy and Climate campaign, recalling that the same United Nations conference on climate change COP26, organized by the United Kingdom in collaboration with Italy “has been postponed for a year and will take place, again in Glasgow, in November 2021 “.
Not to mention the cut in subsidies to fossil sources (disappeared from the Budget law) and the plastic tax. Not only has it been further postponed until next July, but Italian companies have yet to implement actions to actually reduce the amount of plastic that ends up in the environment. However, already in the first months of 2021, Italy will have to deal with unresolved problems and that can no longer spread.
War on Disposables – 2021 will not only be the year of plastic tax (mainly the European one, which will start from January). “One of the first challenges facing our country in 2021 is the implementation of the EU Directive on Disposable Plastics (Sup)”He tells ilfattoquotidiano.it Giuseppe Ungherese, responsible for the Greenpeace Pollution campaign. There is time until July 3. Last November, the Senate approved the amendment that includes i disposable cups among prohibited items, in addition to those already prohibited by the text that transposed the directive, that is to say, plates, plates, straws and containers for liquids made of expanded polystyrene, used mainly in England and the US Now the passage to the House is expected. Despite the contribution included in the Climate Decree that wanted and wants to encourage the sale of goods in bulk, Covid-19 certainly didn’t help the cause, often pushing the purchase of packaged products, considered (wrongly) safer.
Circular economy – 2020 brings with it the decrees with which Italy has implemented the EU directives of the ‘Circular Economy Package’. It covers from the extended responsibility of the producer in the management of the post-consumer phase (it will have to cover at least 80% of total costs) to the forecast of the national waste management program whose approach. “We ask that not everything be imposed on centralization (to define typologies and capacities) tracing the Unlocking of Italy – continues Hungarian – and leaving the choice of location to the Regions”. An approach that, at least in the plans that later remained on paper, had paved the way for landfills and incinerators. Still on the circular economy front, decrees are slow end of waste, which establish the criteria by which, at the end of the recovery process, a waste can be produced and which require a complex process. In November on end of life tires for the recovery of rubber.
In February, the decree of construction and demolition: it is about 60 million tons of waste per year, including those of the earthquake. However, we must accelerate. With 2021 (and the application of the Basel Convention) will arise new challenges. According to the European Court of Auditors, for example, the Union is unlikely to reach the 55% target for recycling plastic packaging by 2030, due to new calculation criteria and stricter rules on the export of plastic waste (from 2021 only recyclable and uncontaminated plastic will be exported).
Pollution between land, sea and air – Twice he waited in vain on cabinet, in 2021 the ddl Terra Mia, with new and stricter sanctions for ecological crimes. If there is a text, then, disappeared from the radar due to the coronavirus, is the law Salvamare. Among other things, it states that fishermen can recover waste disappeared at sea. After the February stoppage, the discussion in the Senate Environment Committee resumed at the end of September. by 2020 air pollution does not end well. Following the initiation of infringement proceedings against Italy for fine particles Pm 2.5, In November, the Court of Justice of the EU accepted the action for non-compliance presented by the Commission for the systematic and continuous exceeding, between 2008 and 2017, of the limit values for particle concentration Pm10 in different areas of the country.
It is true that from 2018 to date, the Climate Decree Law has introduced various measures. From eco-friendly school buses to urban reforestation, to the mobility voucher and the programming of a multi-year fund (for 800 million euros from 2020 to 2034 and 40 million annually from 2035) for the abatement of emissions of fine particles and nitrogen oxides. “But still – Indicates Legambiente – in the Po Valley regions (Emilia-Romagna, Lombardy, Piedmont and Veneto) the block was postponed for the new year to the circulation of older and polluting Euro4 vehicles that, on the other hand, should have taken place last October in the cities mentioned 30 thousand inhabitants “. The reasons, not even to say, have been attributed to the safety of traveling in times of Covid.
Emissions and Pniec – In terms of climate-altering emissions, despite the disappointing recent agreement of the European Council, which provides for a 55% cut (the EU Parliament was aiming for 60%) by 2030, among other things in net emissions (that is, relying also on carbon sinks for offsetting, such as forests) “the process is about to end – remember Iacoboni – and Italy will soon have to adjust theirs Integrated national energy and climate plan (PNIEC) to the new objectives, as Costa himself has recently confirmed. But those goals must be achieved above all. And if the battle of battles is represented by the energy transition, its symbol is the cut to fossil fuels.
Energy transition – Deputies Leu Rossella Muroni presented, together with other colleagues, a reform to the Budget Law that foresees “the gradual elimination, between 2021 and 2025, of the more than 19 billion environmentally harmful subsidies“. As documented in the last Legambiente dossier I’m sad they are in no way diminishing. And despite the establishment of an ad hoc inter-ministerial commission in 2020, the The budget law does not quantify the reduction in any way. Meanwhile, around the corner, there is another playing field: that of renewables in which Italy, playing ahead of other European countries, now grows less than the others.
Covid-19 has caused delays, often due to authorization and bureaucratic procedures. Legambiente estimated that “if Italy fully implemented the directives on renewables (Red II) and in the electricity market (Iem), the contribution of Energy community would allow to cover, by 2030, about 30% of the projected increase in green energy since Stump“In the meantime, it will be necessary to understand whether a control room will be installed.” The issue is intertwined with the use of the Recovery Fund, “underlines the head of the Greenpeace Energy and Climate campaign, Iacoboni, remembering that “on the table there yes renewable, but also large projects related to blue hydrogen (hence gas) and that of Eni to build in Ravenna, a big plant Ccs (CO2 capture and storage) using exhaust gas fields “.
Soil and agriculture – Due to the pandemic, the different bills on land consumption, including the one presented by the deputy of LeU Rossella Muroni, they are still being examined by the Senate Committees on Environment and Agriculture, to arrive at a unified text. The bill against agromafías, launched by the government in February 2020, is still in the House. And if at the European level, 40 scientists I have written to the Commission, Parliament and the European Council, committed to trialogue on the common agricultural policy “Not aligned with Green Deal, Farm to Fork and the EU strategy on biodiversity”, Italy is expected to pass a national action plan limiting the use of chemicals in agriculture and the law on organic agriculture, signed in Senate for too long and that would allow us to reach one 40% conversion of cultivated area by 2030.
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