«Greta Thunberg’s bla bla bla, which was filmed a lot, did not add anything: we were all there because there is a consciousness that we must accelerate. You said it with blah blah blah, we with numbers ». This was stated by Roberto Cingolani, Minister of Ecological Transition, speaking in Parma at the party of the newspaper Domani.
Greta Thunberg’s stay in Italy, in Milan, was short but intense to lead the Fridays for Future procession at the end of September. Minister Cingolani had met her face to face on the same stage, in front of the audience of 400 young delegates of Youth4Climate. He had appealed to young people inviting them to go beyond “useful protests” and end up helping to “find new solutions”. “Leaders lack action. And it is intentional “was the activist’s response:” They pretend to have ambitions against climate change, but continue to open coal mines and exploit deposits, without increasing funds for vulnerable countries. They select young people like us by pretending to listen to us, but that’s not true. They never listened to us ». Concluding with that “Enough blablabla, we have been hearing chatter for 30 years and where are we?”.
Cingolani on coal, gas and nuclear power plants
Cingolani launches the arrow and invites pragmatism at the end of a day where he had already expressed himself on the guidelines that will be used for the ecological transition. Now the priority is “to close coal plants by 2025” and “gas is the vector of transition”. “Nuclear? I’m not a fan but not one who condemns him ». The line dictated by the minister was included in the speech at Digithon, the digital “marathon” organized in Bisceglie by Francesco Boccia, former minister for the South. “I’m not a fan of any technology, but being a scientist, in my opinion the solution is still we don’t have it but if we stop studying, researching and innovating, the solution certainly doesn’t come by itself ». “The closure of nuclear power plants – he argued responding to a question on the debate in Germany relating to giving priority to the closure of nuclear power plants over coal-fired ones – took place because of the Fukushima accident, also on a slightly emotional wave. , however, the most urgent thing at the moment is to close coal-fired power plants by 2025. There is a document by German intellectuals and scientists – he continued – which asks for a little extension of the use of nuclear power precisely to encourage growth renewables, because renewables still take time. If I have to support them with something that produces energy continuously, now, already having a nuclear power plant, it is better to keep the one in operation than to keep the coal ones running. It would be different to build it ».
The minister then reiterated: «The priority is to remove the coal. To eliminate coal – he continued – and switch to renewable energies, for the transition, it takes tens of years during which gas is objectively the energy vector of the transition: it is true that it is fossil but produces less CO2 than coal and guarantees in the continuity of the grid is combined with renewables “. Gas reserves, however, are at their lowest in many areas of Europe, while Italy would have reserves “up to 80%”, assured the minister. Who highlighted: “In part, the increase in gas prices depends on this, on a problem of supply and demand.”
According to Cingolani, in fact, having exasperated in words the fact that the gas must be eliminated as soon as possible, has created the so-called market nervousness: the gas providers have said “if you demonize the gas we will show you that by closing the taps you have problems. And there is also an important geopolitical problem – he pointed out – because the Nord Stream must leave and Russia wants to be sure that there are no reverse gears ». “So – he concluded – a series of facts keep the price of gas high, which weighs 80% on the bill, the remaining 20% depends on the increase in the cost of CO2, so the ecological transition weighs for 20% on the bill”.