WAITING FOR THE SUN. WHEN EVERY MEETING CARRIES LOSS
In the aftermath of the disappointing outcome of Cop28 in Dubai, the baton of climate policy is back in the hands of individual countries. The challenge, for Italy, is to increase the ambition of mitigation policies, the planning of adaptation and preparedness measures, but also the involvement of communities. Through widespread activities on the territory, campaigns, training and citizen science tools, Un Ponte Per, thanks to projects such as Climate Sentinels, involves scientists, teachers, students and citizens in climate monitoring activities, from the north and south of the country. A contribution to the cultural revolution needed to overcome the climate challenge. As Luca Mercalli, climatologist, science popularizer, president of SMI - Società Meteorologica Italiana (Italian Meteorological Society) and one of the trainers of Sentinelle Climatiche points out, "physics does not wait for our whims. Global warming is galloping and it is a process that depends on natural laws, not human decisions. It upsets me that we put economics and society's wishes before laws that work on their own. It is we who must adapt to them, not the other way around."
Italy is a climate vulnerability hot spot. In other words: the territory of our country is particularly fragile to the changing climate. Heat waves, intense precipitation, droughts, rising sea levels, and alien species in the seas and on land are increasingly common and alarming phenomena in our country, requiring urgent adaptation, prevention and land management policies.
The report 'Risk Analysis. Climate Change in Italy' by the CMCC Foundation - Mediterranean Centre for Climate Change found that the probability of risk from extreme events has increased in Italy by 9% in the last twenty years. Related to this are worrying scenarios of rising temperatures, with an estimated loss of up to 8% of GDP by the end of the century, depending on the various scenarios. The latest report by the European Environment Agency (Eea), which analysed the effect of climate disasters between 1980 and 2020, indicates more than 140,000 deaths in Europe. Italy is in third place, after Germany and France, with 21 thousand deaths. In 2023, as many as 61 extreme weather events occurred in Italy in the Lombardy region, 28 in Tuscany, and 24 in Veneto, with a sharp increase compared to 2022. Research conducted by the Centro Studi Consiglio Nazionale degli Ingegneri (Cni) (National Council of Engineers) estimated that at least EUR 26.58 billion would be needed to secure the national territory. A figure needed to protect the 2.4 million inhabitants living in high-risk flood zones and the 6.8 million living in medium-risk flood zones.
Particularly relevant are the climate impacts on children. To give one example, globally, according to Unicef 739 million children are exposed to high or extremely high water shortages. And the prospects for the future are even worse.
Therefore, preparing the population, starting with the youngest, for what climate change will do to their lives is crucial. This is reiterated not only by Unicef, but also by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, which has recently highlighted the right of children to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, with reference to the changing climate.
The right to the future of the young generation has become an important topic of debate in recent years, which has also been the basis for numerous climate litigations promoted in various countries by groups of young people and youth against states and companies.
The importance of directing climate-related funding and resources to children and young people as a priority has also been repeatedly affirmed at the COPs. In this framework, climate education and the empowerment of minors assumes particular relevance, as does the implementation of community involvement strategies starting from schools.
If the younger generations are the ones who will pay the highest price for global warming, the information and education young people have on the subject is insufficient and inadequate. Therefore, bringing climate issues and ecological education into the curriculum is crucial.
Through the synergy of schools, local communities, associations, and institutions, educational communities are strengthened and the right to climate, environment, green, health and life of girls and boys is placed at the centre.
The Climate Sentinels project involves secondary schools in five different regions Piedmont, Emilia-Romagna, Tuscany, Lazio and Sicily.
Bringing together associations, teachers and scientists (among them Luca Mercalli's Italian Meteorological Society, Ismedthe CNR's Institute for Mediterranean Studies with Desirée Quagliarotti and environmental historian Marco Armiero), the activities have trained 150 teachers and school leaders and provided useful teaching tools to involve classes. Objective: to make 10,000 male and female students protagonists of campaigns to monitor climate impacts on their territories through the tools of open science. The results of the monitoring will become a participatory GIS map available online.
For Nicole Marcellini, head of training at A Sud, the project leader, "monitoring the impacts on the territory with Open Science tools is a formidable tool for raising awareness and climate action. Which can only start from the place of education par excellence: the school".
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The project is funded byAICS, the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation.
The partnership includes Un Ponte Per, A Sud, Società Metereologica Italiana, Ismed - CNR, Docenti senza frontiere, CDCA, Cospe, Resilea, Palmanana.
