Two important events this week will have as their theme climate change and the fight not to suffocate the planet. TO Davos, in Switzerland, the annual opens on January 21 World Economic Forum which brings together heads of state, government, economists and bankers. This year they will be faced with a paper by 750 scientists that the climate change it is the top priority in the global economic system. In Assisi on January 24 it is signed the Climate Change Manifesto.
Italy he will have a role in both forums to understand more and then start his Green deal, as Prime Minister Conte has been claiming for months. In truth, Davos, even through a remote confrontation between the American President Donald Trump and the young but determined Greta Thumberg, should tell us something new about the true intentions of the most industrialized countries in the fight against harmful emissions, compared to the last bankruptcy Coop 21 of Madrid.
Italy at home is right to sign such demanding documents and for this Conte will be in Assisi. But he also has the urgency to act in the short and medium term. The commitments of the new environmental course to date have remained in the documents. Businesses and territories await the announced measures which must be streamlined and quickly and effectively applied.
When Conte puts his signature on the Manifesto in Assisi with the presence of the Franciscan friars and the most serious Italian environmentalists, he will have reason to reflect on the fact that that text has gathered almost 2000 adhesions from civil society. It is written that we need to “make our economy and our society more on a human scale. Italy is useful if it manages to make Italy. If it crosses innovation, quality and beauty with the need to eliminate emissions that cause climate change and destroy our economy”. It is little more than an appeal to an executive who wanted to characterize himself from his debut as a turning point, with a green vocation, but who is unable to demonstrate it in practice.
It is enough to read the latest document from the mayors – in view of the meeting in Assisi – to have further certainty of the status quo of the many good intentions expressed by the government. “As an association of Municipalities and as local administrators we are aware of the fact that 60% of the world population lives in cities and that one third of the Italian population lives in the 14 metropolitan cities”. In those cities where waste collection cannot be managed properly, landfills are in operation, traffic is blocked due to exceeding the CO2 limits, public buses pollute, the use of renewable energies is not well supported from concessions, you don't want to build incinerators and so on. Measures were included in the 2000 budget, time will tell.
And the left in government that challenges Grillino and Salvini's (bi) populism? He has the historic opportunity to win a decisive match for tomorrow's Italy. Perhaps the most important that embraces development, environment, health, employment. Listen to the sardines, the government left? Did you then hear that the environment and the green economy are at the top of these kids' requests for a better world? Ermete Realacci, president of the Symbola Foundation and soul of the meeting in Assisi, is one of those who understood this in the most general distraction, until the squares filled up.
The manifesto, promoted among others by Confindustria and associations in the world of work, is an opportunity for a comprehensive reformist policy. The convergence of many protagonists of society on high objectives is a value to be taken into account and projected into political and institutional confrontation. The documents and the leaders are the frame.
