“We are not living room environmentalists, absurd to say that we do not want to clean up the rivers”- Corriere.it

Angelo Bonelli, leader of the Greens, the Minister of the Environment Gilberto Pichetto Fratin reaffirmed the government’s commitment to reduce emissions, 55% by 2030 and neutralization by 2050. A good road.
“The government is really going in the exact opposite direction to that declared by the minister.”

That is to say?

«The government’s goal is to transform Italy into a gas hub, thus increasing dependence on fossil fuels, taking gas mainly from North and Central Africa. Already in 2021 Italy exported 5 billion cubic meters of gas abroad. Instead we should do as they are doing in Germany.

How are they doing?

«A total conversion to renewable energies. By 2035, to understand, the largest German manufacturing industry, which is the largest in Europe, will be satisfied 100 percent by renewables. Germany will be increasingly competitive while we still find ourselves with skyrocketing gas bills, while since August the price of gas has dropped from 310 to 30 euros per kilowatt hour. It is for this not to mention that we are attacked.”

Who attacks you?

«Minister Picetto Fratin has defined us living room environmentalists. He says the fault of the flood is ours that we don’t want to have the rivers cleaned up. This to us? To me who was born in a popular neighborhood that Pasolini would have defined as proletarian? I started doing politics by cleaning together with many environmentalists the shores of the sea and the banks of the rivers from waste and bulky of all kinds. This lie, that we prevent rivers from being cleaned up, is sleazy and offensive. Would we be against lamination tanks? False! We have been asking for years to identify the areas where the river waters should flow out in the event of heavy rains. You want to divert attention from real responsibilities. Fratin but also Minister Musumeci accused us of even more absurd things”.

What have you been accused of?

«Ministers Picetto Fratin and Musumeci argue that it is we environmentalists who do not want to carry out the maintenance works. But if we have been making protests and sit-ins for years to have works for the maintenance of soil defense and hydrogeological risk. Instead, the government dealt with soil consumption: every day in Italy 19 hectares are consumed per day, 2 square meters per second. Money should be invested in securing the area, rather than spending 15 billion on the Messina bridge. We have to fight against climate change deniers and in the meantime here we continue to give absurd authorizations, as happened last week in Liguria ».

What has been authorized in Liguria?

“President Giovanni Toti’s junta has approved a law that authorizes construction in flood zones. This while Emilia Romagna is drowning. It’s something that is truly incredible.”

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