Record climate crisis (also) in Tuscany, the Tyrrhenian Sea boils

Ferruzza (Legambiente): «Something like this has never happened, it should convince us to implement the ecological transition with even more determination»

[8 Maggio 2024]

The climate crisis continues to accelerate in the world, and in Tuscany it is certainly no exception. New data provided today by Copernicus – Europe’s flagship Earth observation program – shows that globally April 2024 was the warmest ever with +1.58°C compared to the pre-industrial era (1850-1900 ).

This is the passing of the first critical safety threshold of the Paris Agreement on the climate, what scientists had predicted by 2025 and which instead arrived early.

This does not mean that the limits established by the Paris Climate Agreement have already been exceeded (as we are talking about periods of at least 20 years in which the average temperature anomaly is exceeded), but it constitutes a worrying precedent. Especially because it comes after 2023 which represented the hottest year of the last 100 thousand.

Containing global warming within +1.5°C to a maximum of +2°C compared to the pre-industrial era represents the safety threshold, identified by the scientific community, to avoid disastrous and irreversible climate changes. But current climate commitments are leading to +2.5-2.9°C by 2100, globally. All this while Europe is warming at double the rate, and Italy almost triple.

As noted by Legambiente Toscana, it is not surprising that in this context a historic series of anomalous temperatures has also affected our region.

According to data from the Lamma Weather Consortium, from July 2023 to today we have had the 9 hottest months ever in succession, i.e. in the last 174 years: from July ’23 to March ’24 we recorded the highest average temperatures ever, from 1850 to Today.

The Tyrrhenian Sea also follows this trend, in fact in the first days of April we have an average temperature of 15° degrees centigrade which means more than 1 degree higher than the average seasonal temperature: a worrying alarm bell, which confirms the structural change in the climate.

«The data we are commenting on today would already be serious if they concerned a series of 2-3 consecutive months, they become dramatic if (as in fact they are) they concern a historical/statistical series of 11 months – declares Fausto Ferruzza, president of Legambiente Toscana – in fact, they do not only something like this has never happened, but scientific evidence crosses common sense when we observe the premature flowering of many plant species, the melting of glaciers and the succession of extreme events throughout the regional and national territory. All these eventualities should convince us to implement the most urgent measures of the ecological transition with even more determination. Stop land consumption and indeed return as much space to nature as possible. Implement the energy revolution, moving from fossil fuels to renewables. Convert all our production districts in an ecological and circular way.”