The Carbon Dinosaur in Italy

Dates in Italy
>>	29 June 04 City of Milan Children at the Milan dinosaur party and activist explaining to children why we should leave the oil in the ground and use our minds instead. MORE
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According to the Kyoto Protocol, Italy must achieve a 6.5% reduction of GHG emissions by 2008-2012 compared to 1990 level. This means that emissions should decrease from 521 Million tonnes of CO2 (Mt), which were the 1990 emissions, to 487 Mt CO2. However, in 2000, emissions were 546 Mt , and the projected emission for 2010 - under the business as usual scenario - is 580 MT. In other words, the real deficit is 93Mt.

The government has adopted a planning instrument the "Delibera CIPE", a mix of binding rules and recommendations. Through a combination of massive substitution of oil with gas, efficiency improvements in all sectors, and growing use of renewables the governments hopes to reduce emissions a further 52Mt. So the deficit would decrease from 93 to 41Mt.

The government believes that carbon sinks, such as forests and agriculture and the flexible mechanisms in the Kyoto protocol will account for the remaining 41 million tonnes.

However the authoritative study centre of the Oil Industry, which seldom makes wrong forecasts, gives different numbers. They concluded that " despite the measures of the CIPE scenario the emissions due to fuels use will continue to grow until 2005 and will decrease only after 2007, so that by 2015 they will still be 9% higher that 1990 level".

In response to this situation, Amici della Terra argues that much more could be done to reduce fossil fuel use in Italy. In particular the transport sector has been left expand , so that road transport is not subjected to any emissions restrictions. Air transport is also in this privileged position, as in order to save AirItalia, general financial support to the aeroplane sector has been promised.

In addition, in the commercial & residential sector, the energy market is and always has been firmly controlled by the fuel suppliers, who only wish to increase their sales.

In conclusion, in Italy our dinosaurs are not old coal plants (practically non-existent) but the very difficult to tackle transport and residential & commercial sectors.

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