Dispatch from Italy | January ‘25
*** Get a bird's-eye view of Italy’s climate-friendly transition in the CLEW Guide – Italy moves on green transition, but fossil fuel ties remain tight***
Stories to watch in the weeks ahead
- Bills are becoming more expensive - Energy costs will become a major political issue at the beginning of 2025, in a situation reminiscent of the 2022 energy crisis. In the past three years, Italy's energy system has remained heavily dependent on gas, and it produces only three billion of the 61 billion cubic metres of gas it consumes, the rest of which has to be imported. Rising prices on the international market will only exacerbate the economic difficulties of Italian companies. According to a report by CGIA, a network of small enterprises, energy costs for industrial production will rise by 19.2 percent – equivalent to 13.7 billion euros – in 2025 when compared to 2024. The worst increases are expected in the country’s most productive regions: Lombardia, Emilia Romagna, Veneto and Piemonte. Italy’s opposition leader, Elly Schlein of the centre-left Partito Democratico, has already accused the government of inaction: “The cost of energy in Italy is the highest in Europe, it is 30 percent higher than in Germany and twice as high as in Spain. Meloni has not said a word about the unsustainable bills for families and businesses.”
- Phasing out fossil fuel subsidies - Italy must cut two billion euros in environmentally harmful subsidies in 2025 in order to access Next Generation EU funds, according to agreements previously made with the European Commission. Meeting this commitment, while trying to navigate the rising cost of energy, is a major political issue for the Meloni government. The environmental ministry told the European Commission it is considering cutting diesel tax refunds, which could mean higher refueling costs passed on to companies and citizens at the pump. Before being elected, Giorgia Meloni promised Italian voters she would not increase taxes on gasoline for drivers, but the commitments made by previous governments are binding and connected to European funds that Italy needs to access. Environmentally harmful subsidies amount to 24 billion euros each year in Italy, of which 17 billion go directly into supporting the use of fossil fuels.
- Too few Italian cars - The fate of the Italian automotive industry is another major concern in public debates. In 2024, Stellantis produced 283,090 cars, 45.7 percent less than in 2023 and the lowest figure since 1956. The sector’s poor results are having a knock-on effect for several industries adjacent to car manufacturing and are connected to the sector’s struggle to transition to electric vehicles (EVs). Stellantis's goal is to return to producing one million vehicles every yearby 2030. The company’s new COO, Jean Philippe Imparato, recently said "the phase out of gasoline cars by 2035 is not a problem for us". The Meloni government, however, is advocating to push the deadline for the phaseout back. Stellantis has asked the government to do more to grow the country’s EV charging infrastructure. “We need a strong development of the charging system. People want a nearby charging station, they don't want to use two hours of their time to charge their electric car,” Imparato said. In Italy, there was a 28 percent increase in installed public charging points in 2024 compared to the same period in 2023, meaning there are now 60,000 public chargers in operation across the country. However, Italy is still well behind both France (120,000) and Germany (114,000).
The latest from Italy – last month in recap
The latest from Italy – last month in recap
- Two perspectives on energy and climate - Italy's top two political figures recently showed widely different approaches to the climate crisis and the country’s energy problems. When prime minister Meloni was asked at a press conference at the beginning of the year about the hike in energy costs expected in Italy, she chose not to say anything. “This is too complicated. I can't answer in 20 seconds, so I'll stop here,” she said. Meloni did not mention climate change in her conference at all. A few days before, during his year-end TV address, president Sergio Mattarella addressed global warming at length, saying he sees “a daunting disproportion” between growth in arms spending, triggered by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the country’s climate action budget. “Defence spending has reached a record 2.4 billion dollars this year, eight times more than was allocated at the recent COP29 in Baku to combat climate change, a need which is vital to humanity," he said. Mattarella’s remarks were strongly welcomed by Italy’s environmental activists.
- A homeless regasification ship - After a years-long political battle, the northern Liguria region of Italy has decided to reject the relocation of the Italis liquefied natural gas (LNG) regasification ship off the coast of Vado Ligure. The facility, offering the capacity to process five billion cubic metres of imported LNG per year, was one of the previous Draghi government's main responses to the energy crisis in 2023 and was purchased from the state-controlled energy infrastructure company SNAM. It has been kept in the port of Piombino, Tuscany, since 2023, where it was met with strong public opposition upon arrival. The agreement with the city at the time was that the ship would stay there for three years and then be relocated to Liguria. Giovanni Toti, the local governor of Liguria at the time who agreed to host the ship there, has meanwhile been arrested on unrelated corruption charges, and the new governor, Marco Bucci, has decided to listen to the local protests against the relocation. Finding another spot for Italis LNG will be difficult, as no other regions have said they are able to host the ship. In April, a second regasification ship will come into operation off Ravenna, Emilia-Romagna. The ship, BW Singapore, will also have a regasification capacity of five billion cubic metres per year.
- New power market rules - Since the beginning of 2025, the Italian power market has been operating under new rules, as there is no longer a single national energy price. Instead, the country has been divided into seven different regional markets, a move designed to lower wholesale energy costs. However, the mechanism will only work if Italy meets its targets for the installation of renewables, as the wholesale price is designed according to the price of the most expensive energy source (merit order), which currently happens to be gas almost everywhere in Europe. To meet targets for the expansion of renewables, the government must build more and move from 7 gigawatts to 12 gigawatts of added capacity per year.
Ferdinando’s picks - Highlights from upcoming events and top reads
Ferdinando’s picks - Highlights from upcoming events and top reads
- Climate storytelling at its finest - Well-known climate writer Fabio Deotto curated a collection of speculative nonfiction that will be published as a book, titled Come ne usciremo (How we will get out of this), and released on 5 February. A number of Italian writers (Claudia Durastanti, Vincenzo Latronico, Francesca Coin) and international writers (Sergio Del Molino, Meehan Crist, Omar El Akkad) try to imagine how essays would be written between 2030 and 2040 if we saved ourselves from the many crises we are experiencing today. It could bring environmental storytelling to a whole new level.
- Biodiversity diplomacy in Rome - From 25-27 February, the headquarters of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) will host the closing of COP16, the international biodiversity summit that had been suspended in early November in Cali, Colombia, due to a lack of a quorum. Italy has not hosted an environmental policy summit in decades, so it’s going to be interesting to see how the country will manage it. Important issues will have to be decided on in the Italian capital, such as the new resource mobilisation strategy to find 200 billion dollars a year by 2030 for biodiversity and to reduce harmful incentives by at least 500 billion dollars a year by 2030.
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