The recent G20 in Rome and Cop26 still underway in Glasgow marked a turning point in global policies to combat climate change. And this progress consists not so much in the agreements reached, such as for example the acceptance of the limit of 1,5 degrees of maximum increase in temperature, or in the halt to deforestation, but above all in the greater clarity that has been achieved on the complexity of the problem and on the possibility of tackling it gradually and with suitable tools.
In other words, the foundations have been laid for a realistic view both from a political point of view and from the point of view of technologies and related governance.
Some extremisms of green activists have been overcome, pushing for immediate solutions which, if implemented, would cause a very serious economic and social crisis in both advanced and less developed countries.
But there is still a lot to do, especially from a cultural point of view. To make public opinion understand what the problems need to be solved, it is necessary to stop with the vulgate to Greta Thumberg, who sees the greats of the earth as "enemies" of the climate as opposed to the people who instead want to save the planet by reducing CO2 emissions, even at the cost of changing the economies and lifestyles of all the inhabitants of the globe. In short, according to them, the rich should adopt austere lifestyles and the poor be content to remain poor!
In reality, the heads of governments bring the responsibility of meeting the demands of their populations to the top world leaders, who are certainly not inclined to make sacrifices. As India it does not challenge the rest of the world at all, as the opening headline of a major Italian newspaper stated, but simply seeks to safeguard its own pace of development in order to bring a significant part of its inhabitants out of absolute poverty.
Also the China it is under attack because it has become the factory of the world, and as such it is the main responsible for CO2 emissions with almost 25% of the annual total, when the whole of Europe is below 8%. This happened because developed countries brought part of their most polluting factories to China. However, certain options that are being advanced to force China to join international projects that envisage zero emissions around 2050 are at best ineffective or even harmful.
In fact, there is talk of imposing tariffs on Chinese products made with polluting systems to protect companies that produce green in Europe or the USA. For example, since China now produces 50% of all world steel production, while in the rest of the world, once they switch to gas or hydrogen, steel mills would have much higher costs, it is proposed to put a hefty tariff on Chinese steel to protect our factories. But what happens to steel users and then to consumers who would have to bear a sharp increase in the prices of certain goods?
It is just one example among many that can be used to understand that the green transition will in any case lead to an upheaval in the relative prices of goods and that this could have wide-ranging repercussions both within the various states and between the various countries that have different phases of development.
This introduces us to the second major problem which is far from being solved viz what technologies we can use and what governance we put in place to ensure a balanced green transition and free from deceptive infatuations that would lead to an immense waste of money without appreciable results. Finally, also thanks to President Draghi and Minister Cingolani, we are beginning to understand that the only ones renewable productions they would not be able to ensure complete decarbonisation because the sun and wind are not always there, and because batteries for storing energy do not yet exist and are very expensive. We will therefore have to proceed with the capture of the CO2 emitted by power plants or factories, use the gas to manage a long transition period, and focus on nuclear energy in the medium term of new generation to have clean energy and be able to make hydrogen with which to move transport.
Then there are the problems concerning the way of finance the massive investments necessary for the abandonment of fossil fuels. Of course, not everything can be done by the public sector. It will therefore be necessary to involve private individuals, which is possible only if there are concrete prospects of a positive return on their investments. After all, Bill Gates demonstrated in his recent book that the real leap in the change of energy sources occurred when the new sources proved to be more convenient than the old ones, and therefore able to generate greater profits or lower product prices.
It follows that a real policy of changing energy sources cannot take place against the market, but on the contrary it will be possible only if private individuals will be induced to invest massively in the new green technologies. But do these technologies exist? Unfortunately, in many cases we are still in the study phase or in the construction of experimental plants. It therefore follows that the State, and indeed the community of States, should concentrate a large part of their financial efforts on innovation and research as has been done for the anti COVID vaccine, at the same time creating a global governance to then put the results of this research available to all, thus avoiding the risk of a nationalistic castling in order to have competitive advantages.
Individual States should also focus on policies for the reorganization of their territories to enable them to withstand the effects of climate change without too much damage which, even if it were possible to contain, would still be significant, as is already being observed in various parts of the globe.
What matters now is to proceed with clarity, to avoid alarmist rhetorical statements (we have little hope, we are at the last mile, etc.) which only lead citizens to distrust the rulers and often push them to do useless and harmful things. Instead, there would be a need to induce confidence in the population that the climate issue is being managed with weighted determination, avoiding needless sacrifices but having the reasonable certainty that within a few decades we will be able to have clearly visible results of saving our planet.
