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It is not a science fiction scenario from the distant future, but one that our children and grandchildren, those in first grade today and then in their early eighties, could face at the end of the century.
This is the scenario envisioned by researchers from the Euro-Mediterranean Center for Climate Change (CMCC) who today present the Risk Analysis report. Climate change in Italy, the first document of its kind for our country. Starting from the mathematical models that allow us to simulate the climate of the future, Cmcc scholars have focused on individual sectors (economic costs, cities, hydrogeological risk, water, agriculture, fire) to provide scientific elements to those who will have to make fundamental decisions for the next decades.
“Our simulations took into account the two possible extreme situations,” he explains. Donatella spano, Professor of Agrometeorology at the University of Sassari and coordinator of the thirty Cmcc scholarship holders who wrote the report.
“The optimistic case, in which serious measures have been taken to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, and the pessimistic one, without mitigating the phenomenon and with an economic development similar to the current one.”
This is precisely the most dramatic scenario, with an average temperature for Italy that would grow 5 degrees in 2100 and a cost, in purely economic terms, of 8 percentage points of GDP per capita. “A different development model is absolutely necessary, also because continuing in this way will have very high social costs that will fall on the weakest groups”, warns Professor Spano.
“The increase in mortality related to heat waves, fires, deterioration of air quality or even floods, would end up especially affecting those who live in contexts with inadequate infrastructure, poor in goods and services.”
It has often been written about the secondary effects that global warming will have in different corners of the planet: from the melting of ice at the poles, to the rise in sea level that could engulf entire archipelagos, to the increase of extreme atmospheric events. on the Atlantic coasts of the United States. However, it is the first time that a scientific institution has focused on the possible climate risk specific to Italy. “Unfortunately, the Mediterranean, due to its geography and its climatic variability, is considered a critical area, in which global warming could have a stronger impact than elsewhere”, continues Spano. That is why it is important to prepare for this eventuality and work to increase the resilience of the territories ”.
From cities, increasingly vulnerable to heat waves and floods due to extreme weather events, to forests (the fire season could extend from 20 to 40 days), to the countryside. A particularly sensitive sector will in fact be agriculture: African temperatures and long periods of drought could completely redesign cultivated fields.
“A deep transformation of the sector is desirable, as suggested by the latest document of the European Union Farm to Fork Strategy (Strategy from field to plate, ed), which outlines the new agriculture in the context of the Green Deal sought by Brussels ”, confirms the professor. “We will have to focus on new irrigation techniques, better management of soil fertility, genetic improvement of crops so that they adapt more to the new climate. But to achieve all this, resources and political will are needed to guide the productive system towards change ”.
A dramatic picture and a difficult challenge, that of convincing Italian politics to act immediately. But I am optimistic, concludes Spano. “In recent years I have seen the demand for environmental protection grow in Italy. Of course, awareness of what awaits us must be further increased among citizens and politicians. But today our knowledge allows us to assess climate risk and put these assessments in the hands of those who then must decide. This is also the meaning of our relationship.
