Note from Legambiente Lombardia
The institutional Aria table of the Lombardy Region, chaired last Monday 17th by the Regional Councilor for the Environment and Climate, with the participation of a vast representation of interests as well as local administrations, ended with nothing done, with old proposals of decades, essentially irrelevant for the quality of the air that Lombard citizens breathe, far from the air quality objectives required by European directives, in a scenario in which regional policy has decided for too long not to be incisive.
The data transmitted by ARPA show the usual trend of very slow improvement, which in 2024 benefited from never so abundant rainfall. Yet, although the legal limits have not yet implemented the adjustments decided at the European level, even in this rainy 2024 several capitals have already exceeded the number of days of excess allowed for dust, certifying the sidereal distance between Lombardy and the air clean.
There is no structural recovery intervention on the horizon, despite the infringement procedures and European condemnations on air quality, brought to the same table: nothing that can go beyond exemptions and ‘we’ll see’, to attack the problem in the economic sectors responsible for the majority of emissions: road transport and intensive farming.
In these two areas we continue to pretend not to see the problems in order to maintain the status quo, except for palliatives and distribution of public resources in the form of incentives. During the meeting, the councilor had the opportunity to express his scepticism, for example towards the electric car, motivating them in the name of a ‘technological neutrality’ which sounds more like an alibi for not acting, precisely where politics is called to provide directions and not to be ‘neutral’ so as not to disturb operators and corporatism.
There is also little new on the front of the management of smog emergencies: the announcement of wanting to bring forward the activation of the temporary limitation measures by one day (three days after the limits have been exceeded, instead of four) is irrelevant: smog emergencies in fact occur when atmospheric circulation stops in the Po Valley and pollutants accumulate, to limit damage to health it is necessary to act before, and not after, the accumulation has occurred, based on the systems
weather forecasts, as the Emilia Romagna region has been doing for some time.
«The region convenes institutional tables in which it proclaims its impotence with respect to air pollution, despite now having a very clear framework of responsibilities – comments Damiano Di Simine, scientific director of Legambiente Lombardia -. The priority actions should in fact impact road transport, where it is necessary to combat traffic congestion, improve the performance of public transport and support the electrification of private transport; and on agriculture,
where, beyond the necessary technological improvements, an agenda is needed for the restructuring of production systems that leads to reducing the overload of farmed animals and zootechnical manure, produced in strong excess of the land’s absorption capacity. The air quality game is won by deciding to play, not by sitting on the bench!
