Drought and its opposite. Italy finally has a law to rely on. There is a control rooma with 7 Ministers and the delegates of the Regions who will somehow deal with both the lack of water and its sudden abundance. The law that should better protect our country from extreme events revolves around this structure. Publication in the Official Gazette is awaited, then we'll see. No one, starting with the Ministers of Civil Protection and the Environment, excludes other emergencies but the measure is a tampon and not a schedule. Among the first activities, the control room must carry out a reconnaissance of the most urgent interventions to be implemented. But there is also the appointment of that Extraordinary Commissioner that has been talked about for two months. Expenditure to address the water shortage should be i 4 billion eurosor provided for in the PNRR. But for the timing, the methods of spending and other shortcomings, the oppositions voted against the decree. They also judge him late and without controls. The water crisis has scourged Italy for two consecutive years, so it is the intention of the government to set up dozens of construction sites. On paper there is the adaptation of existing water structures or the construction of new ones. Invaded, as the territories ask, capable of forfeiting water when the rains are favourable.
Emergencies never end
One is enough emergency decree ? To whom will the "command group" of Palazzo Chigi report? According to the opposition, no one. "The PNRR provides 4 billion for the improvement of the water service, but without the supervision by the Court of Auditors it will be the government that will have to inform" the State of what and where it is being done, said the deputy Dem Marco Simianthe. Without underestimating the hydrogeological risks, the centre-left has proposed the creation of a Extraordinary fund for the most urgent interventions. Fight against the waste of water resources, reuse of waste water in agriculture, desalination, contrast to the silting of basins, are the other actions on which the government structure should intervene. There critical status reconnaissance in the countryside it should be done within a month, but few believe in it. The decree affects the governance of the emergency to deal with an unfavorable situation, says the Brothers of Italy, but the Greens note the eccentricity of these statements. "The Extraordinary Commissioner, envisaged by the decree, joins the Extraordinary Commissioners for hydrogeological instability, those to accelerate the preparation and implementation of the National Action Plan in the water sector, the single national Commissioner for purification, the for urgent interventions for the management of the water crisis” said the group leader of the Alleanza Verdi e Sinistra Luana Zanella. From an environmental point of view, drought and intense floods are two sides of the same coin. Arid soils do not absorb large quantities of water that has fallen in a few hours or days. Landslides and falling trees are the practical demonstration of these anomalies. Emergencies yes, the climate change that the Mediterranean countries need a comprehensive response which as far as we are concerned we should read it in the Climate Plan. The EU is waiting for it we had remained in a public consultation, then silence. The Coldiretti initiative in Rome as part of the “World Meeting of Human Fraternity”, re-proposed the discomfort of 300 thousand farms of the Po Valley. According to Coldiretti, 2023 is classified as "the hottest ever" with a temperature 1,44 degrees higher than the historical average. After "only" a decree against drought, will there also be an anti-heat decree?
