2024-02-08 13:14:20
by Alessio Ribaudo
According to the «Mal’aria 2024» report, the Ciociaria municipality, which has been at the top of the rankings for years, has the record for Pm10 exceedances. All the large centers of Lombardy and Veneto are doing badly. «Clean air in Italian urban centers remains a mirage»
From Turin to Venice via Milan and Bologna: we are still in February but it is already a “red flag” for air pollution in many cities in Northern Italy. Many municipal administrations have already taken action and have issued ordinance after ordinance to limit vehicular traffic. Measures that try to heal but do not cauterize the “wound” inflicted by smog which, every year, sees a good portion of our capitals “asphyxiated” by fine dust (PM10, PM2.5). The mayor of Trieste broke through and asked for an urgent meeting with the Minister of the Environment, Picchetto Fratin to «put in place an Extraordinary Plan for the replacement of boilers and urban reforestation for all the Municipalities of the Veneto that experience this problem» and invited “colleagues from the other regions of the Po Valley to join us in tackling the problem”. The 2023 photograph was taken by Legambiente.
The ranking
Looking at the «Mal’aria» report – read in advance by the Corriere – it was Frosinone who wore the not very commendable “black shirt” of the most polluted city in Italy. Unfortunately, the Ciociaria city has been among the cities most affected by smog for years and, already in 2015, it was at the top of the ranking. In 2021 it dropped out of the top ten but, last year, it went beyond the legal limits (35 days a year with a daily average above 50 micrograms/cubic meter) for 70 days. It has doubled the 35 day limit. A trend that does not seem to change at the beginning of this year given that the mayor Riccardo Mastrangeli was already forced in January to sign ordinances restricting traffic and heater temperatures after the Arpa control units detected concentrations of fine dust in the air from “red dot”. Returning to the ranking, Turin came in second place (66 days) which lost one position compared to last year. Scrolling through the rankings, the capitals of Lombardy and Veneto are doing very badly. In fact, Mantua and Treviso (63 days) placed ex aequo on the podium. Then here are Padua and Venice (62) and then also Rovigo (55), Verona (55) and Vicenza (53). Immediately after come Milan (49), Asti (47), Cremona (46), Lodi (43), Brescia and Monza (40). Alessandria (39) and Ferrara (36) close the list. The only large center in Southern Italy is Naples, which also has 36 days of overrun.
The comparison
If you look at the glass half full, the data highlights an improvement compared to 2022 because there were 29 “outlaw” cities compared to 18 in the past year. Legambiente, however, warns that the decrease is «mainly attributable to the “favorable” weather conditions that characterized 2023, rather than to an actual success of the political actions undertaken to deal with the smog emergency». If we look at the glass half empty, however, from North to South our cities are significantly behind the more stringent limits proposed by the revision of the European Directive on air quality which will come into force from 2030 (20 µg/m3 for PM10, 10 µg/m3 for PM2.5 and 20 µg/m3 for NO2). «69% of cities would be outlawed for PM10, with the most critical situations in Padua, Verona and Vicenza with 32 µg/m3, followed by Cremona and Venice (31 µg/m3), and finally by Brescia, Cagliari, Mantua, Rovigo, Turin and Treviso (30 µg/mc)”. Similar situation also for PM2.5: «84% of the cities would be above the future limits, with the highest values recorded in Padua (24 µg/m3), Vicenza (23 µg/m3), Treviso and Cremona (21 µg/mc), Bergamo and Verona (20 µg/mc)”.
Delay
«Once again the goal of having clean air in Italian urban centers remains a mirage, as demonstrated by the photograph taken by our “Mal’Aria di città” report», declares Giorgio Zampetti, general director of Legambiente. “The sources are known just as the actions and measures to reduce emissions are available and known, but we still continue to experience strong and unjustified delays in promoting transversal solutions. We therefore need a radical change, implementing structural and integrated measures, capable of effectively impacting the various sources of smog, from building heating, from industry to agriculture and livestock farming up to mobility, where measures to reduce traffic and pollution can be well reconciled with greater safety for pedestrians and cyclists, as demonstrated by the important intervention of the city at 30km/h in Bologna wanted by the mayor Matteo Lepore and the municipal administration. An intervention already carried out in several European cities which we ask is increasingly widespread in Italian ones too.”
The health alarm
Andrea Minutolo, scientific director of Legambiente, adds: «In light of the WHO standards, which suggest limit values that are much more stringent than the current legal values and which represent the real objective for safeguarding people’s health, the situation becomes even more critical . We need to bring about a turning point at a national and territorial level to reduce the health impact on the Italian population, the cost associated with it, and the damage to natural environments.” In Italy, in fact, it is estimated that there are 47 thousand premature deaths per year due to PM2.5. «It is crucial – warns Legambiente – that the Italian Government does not further hinder this path, avoiding exemptions and clauses that could justify delays in achieving the objectives».
The proposals
For this reason, the environmentalist association proposes, among other things, some solutions ranging from mobility (massive investments in local public transport and incentives for the use of public transport, shared electric mobility even in the suburbs, implementing limited traffic zones) to promoting home working through more sustainable heating systems or ensuring compliance with regulations in agriculture (the spreading and rapid burial of sewage, the covering of their tanks and the creation of treatment systems, especially for the production of biomethane) . Finally, also increase the number of monitoring stations in order to guarantee coverage of all the main urban areas of the country.
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February 8, 2024 (modified February 8, 2024 | 2.14 pm)
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