Decarbonization: Italy is lagging behind

In just three months of 2021, from January to March, China registered ten million electric cars. In 2020 alone, China installed solar and wind farms with a capacity equal to four times the entire renewable energy capacity of Great Britain. Are we witnessing a paradigm shift in a country that remains the world's largest polluter? If only! Despite these data, all under the banner of sustainability, China continues to produce 53 percent of the world's coal-fired electricity. Not only that. While half of Europe's 324 coal-fired plants have closed or will close by 2030, China continues to open and plan new coal-fired power plants. In 2020, new projects totaling 46 GW were approved: more than in the previous three years combined.

CARBON CENTRAL LOCKING

On the one hand, the need to provide everyone with clean and affordable energy (SDG 7, enshrined in the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development), on the other, meeting the deadline (in Italy, set for 2025) for phasing out coal in electricity generation. To give an idea of ​​the current climate, 840 million people worldwide still live without electricity, and 3 billion men and women are unable to cook cleanly. Wasted lives . In Italy, however, energy is available for everyone, even if the costs are too high, and the national average for energy produced from renewable sources (i.e., without coal) is as high as 17 percent. This level is too low (although in some areas of the North, such as Trento and Bolzano, it's above 50 percent) and, more seriously, it's decreasing compared to 2014. This is also due to incentives that were once overly generous and have since been reversed. In any case, talking about clean energy, as enshrined in Sustainable Development Goal 7, means finding a way to completely phase out coal , whereas, in Italy, we still have twelve coal-fired power plants.

READ ALSO: The future of energy, for everyone, depends on a clear choice. Less waste, more clean energy sources. How can we do it? Read our editorial manifesto in this book, Don't Waste.

DECARBONIZATION

The end to coal is a cornerstone of the battle against global warming , to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (27,1 billion tons of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere in 2018, a record year ), and to accelerate progress toward achieving the 17 goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. There's no doubt about it. And thanks to the grassroots push from the Friday For Future youth movement , the UN has finally reached this conclusion, officially calling on all governments around the world to stop building new coal-fired power plants and to convert existing ones. This is a complex matter, especially in Italy, where coal-fired power plants cover 13,5 percent of the country's electricity needs and simultaneously produce a whopping 39 million tons of CO02 per year.

CLEAN AND ACCESSIBLE ENERGY

The complexity is clear: money is needed, and lots of it . Germany , just to illustrate how green transitions are truly decided, not just by making announcements, has put €40 billion on the table to close its coal-fired power plants. Alternatives are needed: first and foremost, renewables and non-polluting gas plants. And quick, straightforward bureaucratic procedures are needed, without the usual thousand obstacles that hold everything up, considering that converting a plant takes about four years to complete.

CLEAN AND ACCESSIBLE ENERGY

The complexity is clear: money is needed, and lots of it . Germany , just to illustrate how green transitions are truly decided, not just by making announcements, has put €40 billion on the table to close its coal-fired power plants. And the German Green Deal isn't just a headline, but a specific government policy. Given that coal generates about a third of Germany's electricity (while renewable energy covers 35 percent of demand), the money put on the table will primarily go to the regions to finance the energy transition. New infrastructure projects, such as new gas-fired power plants, must be completed, and the cost of retraining workers currently employed in coal plants must be paid. Among the options are also transfers of labor to the military, government offices, and state administrations. In addition to the €40 billion for the regions, the German Green Deal also allocates another €4,3 billion to businesses. With some compensation: RWE, Germany's largest fossil fuel producer, has pledged to save what remains of the Hambach Forest in North Rhine-Westphalia, where the energy giant has cut down a huge amount of trees to make way for a lignite mine.

Beyond money, alternatives are needed: first and foremost, renewables and non-polluting gas plants. And quick, straightforward bureaucratic procedures are needed, without the usual thousand obstacles that hold everything up, considering that converting a plant takes about four years to complete. In Great Britain, too, the choice to decarbonize has been made, and the deadline for closing the five remaining power plants (2025) could be accelerated due to Covid-19. The epidemic has meant that, for the first time since the Industrial Revolution and the first power plants, not a single gram of coal has been put into circulation for two consecutive months. The British conversion project includes five power plants: one in Wales, owned by the German company RWE, which could close by 2020; four in England and one in Northern Ireland, which will shut down their plants by 2025, or perhaps even sooner. Extraordinary results, considering that only ten years ago coal accounted for 40 percent of Britain's energy sources.

Finally, speaking of clarity and effectiveness, it's important to understand where we're starting from. Coal accounts for 77 percent of global emissions , while accounting for 38 percent of the planet's total energy production. Furthermore, the emissions it produces are particularly harmful, releasing carbon dioxide and deadly fine particles into the atmosphere we breathe . In short , it's a pure waste, especially of human lives. According to the Lancet, every year 7 million people die globally from air pollution, 2,9 million of whom are caused by particulate matter and fine particles alone. In the 15 countries with the highest greenhouse gas emissions, the health impact costs 4 percent of GDP. According to New Scientist, a plant or animal species becomes extinct every twenty minutes.

Since numbers aren't opinions, and considering the magnitude of coal-related emissions, one thing is certain: we must exit. Otherwise, it means there's no genuine desire to combat climate change and reduce mortality related to air pollution. The question is how to exit, always keeping in mind that the energy mix will continue to evolve with the global transition in this sector for a long time.

BENEFITS OF CARBON ELIMINATION

So the question is straightforward: can we live well without coal from now on? Who wouldn't like a world with cleaner air for everyone, less carbon dioxide, and energy sourced exclusively from renewable sources, eliminating ancient and polluting sources? Only an uninformed person, a fool, or someone acting in bad faith would feel capable of answering these questions with a doubly presumptuous certainty. Like: yes, we can all live without coal (answer to the first question); I don't give a damn about cleaner air (answer to the second question). On the other hand, the mere idea that Italy accounts for 500 premature deaths a year , linked to pollution from coal, is horrifying. These are wasted lives, unworthy of a modern and developed country like ours.