A lot is happening in Italy with an aim to try and resolve the headaches of the energy sector and have the country compete effectively on available economic opportunities with its EU neighbors. The country has been forced to meet its power demand through import but there’re efforts to increase local power production.

The country wants to focus on renewable energy sources in line with meeting other EU green energy regulations and other climate agreements.

Paris Climate Agreement is one of them and Italy supports the course, therefore, it has to align its policies with the undertakings of this agreement.  Apart from Italy, almost all of the G8 countries support it with countries like the US opting to pull out calling for amendments.

 

Paris Climate Agreement

On December 12, 2015, a global agreement on climate change was made in Paris which is now popularly being referred to as the Paris agreement. This agreement contains the roadmap to limiting the global warming below 2°C and covers the period starting from 2020 onwards. Some of the key areas it touches on include:

• An agreement by governments to contain rise in global average temperatures well below 2°C and pursue to have them limited to 1.5°c,
• Countries also submitted their national climate action plans to reduce emissions,
• An agreement to communicate after every 5 years on country’s developments to the course and setting of new targets,
• An agreement to remain transparent to the course, report to the public and each other on their commitment and how the targets are being implemented,
• And also a proposal for EU and other developed countries to support developing countries through climate finance so that these countries can reduce emissions and be able to cope with the effects of climate change.

2016 Power Auction

As a strong supporter of the initiative Italy has scaled its operations for green energy, some of the projects currently in place which are supporting the Paris agreement include; the 2016 power auction. This power auction helped to raise funds for the construction of the offshore wind power plant in Tuscany, a project that is being touted as a unique development being the first in France and the Mediterranean. This project will add to the national grid 30MW and help reduce dependency on the fossil fuel drastically.

Apart from offshore wind plant the developments at the auction also led to awarding of agreements for fixed price power purchase for 25 years of onshore wind power amounting to 800MW.

Away With Coal

The phasing out of coal power by 2025 is yet another project that supports the Paris agreement. Initially, Italy had proposed to phase out coal by the year 2030 but retracted and came up with a more ambitious plan to do so by the year 2025. Phasing out coal and replacing it with renewable energy will go a long way to reducing the emissions on the road to achieving the 2°c mark.

National Energy Strategies

Another step towards full implementation of the Paris agreement is the coming up of the various national energy strategies. These strategies are primarily focused towards getting the country towards renewable energy and hence are Paris agreement friendly. There are incentives in place to help realize some of these strategies.

To affirm the commitment to the course, the Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni has joined other global leaders like the Prime Minister of India where both leaders continue to publicly declare their support to the Agreement and share wise counsel on what they are doing to implement it.

All these initiatives show clearly of the country’s commitment towards the implementation of the Paris Climate Agreement.  There has been a cry though that legislation and other blueprints at the national and local levels are not coming fast enough to support the course and have the agreement implemented fully, the onus is on the government to push its legislative arm to act with speed and have the ball rolling.