Italian cities have become veritable gas chambers. Air quality in urban centers continues to deteriorate, despite local efforts and improvements due to technologies, new regulations, a better energy mix and greener fuels.
A problem that does not concern only our country but the whole world. In Europe, over 500.000 people die every year due to air pollution and the data regarding Italy is alarming: 90 premature deaths and 1.500 deaths per million inhabitants (1.116 only for PM2,5 particulate matter), numbers that allow us to wear the black jersey among the major European countries for air pollution. Figures that have prompted experts to speak of a real pandemic.
These and other data are contained in the Air quality report presented on Friday 29 September in Rome. A research carried out by the Foundation for Sustainable Development in collaboration with Enea and with the partnership of the State Railways which, in addition to identifying the "DNA of pollution", contains ten concrete proposals to grow the green economy and improve air quality in the cities of the peninsula.
“Even today – he says Edo Ronchi, president of the Foundation for Sustainable Development – air pollution is one of the main environmental and health threats of our time. To meet the challenge of air quality we need to innovate our policies, taking into account the characteristics of current pollution, the potential impacts of ongoing climate change, the growing role of "unconventional" sectors that add to transport and industry, such as emissions from the agricultural sector and from residential heating, in particular biomass"
Precisely for this reason, the first of the ten proposals contained in the report is based on creation of a national air quality strategy that renews governance, centralizing some responsibilities to influence national transport, energy, construction policies, etc., identifying structural and exceptional measures valid throughout the national territory and connecting the national climate strategy with the problem of local pollution .
In fact, as Ronchi explains to FIRSTonline: "local initiatives such as blocking cars, alternating license plates, limiting traffic in some areas mitigate the peaks, however on background pollution, on fine dust, they are of little use, especially in the where the air exchange is less. There is therefore an absolute need for structural strategies, including national ones”. From this point of view, the State and the Government must therefore implement the work and coordinate the various policies implemented at the regional and local level.
The main causes of air pollution in urban centers include agriculture, wood biomass heating, industry with its SOx and NMVOC emissions, but above all Transports.
And it is precisely in this last sector that a giant like Ferrovie dello Stato intends to play its part. How can a company that "deals with trains" affect the air quality of cities? With an innovative proposal not limited to iron, but on the contrary, based on integrated mobility and sustainable transport methods.
Lorenzo Root, FS Sustainability manager explains that: “trains remain the backbone of the group, but the company is evolving towards a business vision aimed at promoting integrated mobility systems based not only on iron, but also on rubber (in bus terms) or, thanks to our partnerships, on car sharing, bike sharing".
How this evolution translates from theory to practice is easy to say: "Our aim - continues Radice - is to build an effective and efficient proposal that allows citizens to move from A to B, from home to home, not just from station to station. We therefore reasoned on the establishment of platforms that allow individuals to buy a single ticket to go from one place to another with alternative methods to the private car. With the same ticket or even through a simple purchase made through an app, every citizen must be able to take a bike to get to the station, move to the next one, use the subway and/or take advantage of car sharing. All with a single purchasing solution”.
A plan which, once fully operational, could facilitate inter-mobility by removing one of the main obstacles to its implementation, namely the difficulties that citizens today are forced to face in passing from one vehicle to another. “This is also one of the reasons why many still use the private car – says the Sustainability manager of FS -, because it allows you to get from A to B without interruption, while with traditional, collective and sustainable means of transport it is much more complicated and what the Ferrovie Group intends to do is to try to overcome this obstacle”.
“As part of our 2016-2026 business plan, we have many projects to strengthen both the road sector, with the company Busitalia, and agreements with local public transport. We have many, in different regions. We recently acquired Salerno, but there are also Umbria and Tuscany. We have devised various initiatives aimed at improving the offer of integrated mobility in Italy and, also in the coming years, we intend to continue on this path”, concludes Radice.
And about the industry? Also in this area, a national policy that coordinates the various interventions to be implemented is fundamental, some of which he illustrates to us Francesco Franchi, President of Assogasliquidi: “We could focus on a more favorable tax regime for industries that pollute less and more rigid vis-à-vis those who pollute the most, on incentives for those who use more innovative and sustainable technologies, promoting electrification and the use of low environmental impact". In other words, by finding a system that helps businesses to be more efficient and to pollute less.
There is still a long way to go, as evidenced by the report on air quality presented today, also because as regards the two most critical pollutants at the health level (particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide), more than half of the Member States, Italy including, is subject to an infringement procedure. 2030 is not that far away and our country runs the risk of not being able to hit the European targets. In this context, says Ronchi, "the development of the green economy in urban areas is the most effective solution to solve this situation".
