The Regional Assembly of RECA (Emilia-Romagna Climatic and Environmental Emergency Network), which represents numerous ecological realities spread throughout the regional territory, takes the floor on electoral deadline regional elections now close, since the candidacy of President Stefano Bonaccini makes the new elections in our region practically certain.
For the environmentalist world, a reflection on the actions of this President, this Council and their majority is necessary.
Our decision not to sign the “Pact for Work and Climate” proposed by the Region, and consequently build our “Pact for Climate and Work“, and subsequently the campaign to collect signatures for the presentation of our four popular initiative laws, our elaboration on the need to question the current productive and social model and the continuous comparison with citizens, already constitute the guide for the discussion that we are opening today, and which we want to be a truly public discussion, and which will start immediately.
On the fundamental topic ofpowerthe Region did not want to build a real alternative to the dominant policies, and gave its support to the measures most opposed to the transition, to drilling, to the capture and storage of CO2 emissions, to the Ravenna regasifier (and to the entire LNG supply chain ), to the construction of the useless mega-gas pipeline of the Adriatic Line, has in fact endorsed the absurd government plan to make Italy thehub of methane for Europe. Above all, a path of urgency and non-deferrability has been imposed which has mortified every environmental and procedural constraint.
In the politics of waste there has been a 180 degree reversal compared to the declared intentions and framework of law 16/2015 on waste and circular economy. In the Pact for Work and the Climate, at least an objective of reducing waste production and a reduction in non-recycled waste was reported. The subsequent choices went in the exact opposite direction, so much so that for 2027, non-recycled waste was quantified at 239 kg compared to the 150 required by law and the 110 required by the Pact. Finally, the commitment to close the incinerators has been forgotten (after the smallest and most obsolete one in Ravenna), which – let’s remember – emit more climate-altering gases than methane power plants.
On the land consumption, the regional law passed in 2017 turned out to be an intricate tangle of exceptions, which in reality mean that the law remains a dead letter. We are one of the regions with the highest land consumption, and even the flooded areas were only belatedly and absolutely incompletely placed in a moratorium condition, and the push for the creation of new and immense logistics centers and road and motorway works is giving its fundamental contribution to the destruction of regional land.
The privatization choices continued water service, effectively handed over to the large multiutilities Hera and Iren, which look to maximizing profits and dividends, rather than producing a truly public and efficient service. The scandalous regional provision, which extended all management of the water service to the end of 2027, exceeding the time limit of numerous concessions, prevents the possibility of opening a re-publicisation process.
There air quality in the Po Valley it is among the worst in the world, and our Region certainly does not shine for measures that tend to improve its conditions.
There mobility remains closely linked to the scourge of private transport, and large pieces of nature and the health of populations continue to be sacrificed to it, there is no courage to promote choices that encourage collective transport, large road and motorway works are planned. The all-out defense of Motor Valley’s image does not in the least question the excessive power of motorization.
The massive presence of intensive farming is not questioned in the slightest, the so-called gastronomic excellences of the region are taken as a pretext to enhance them in an unlimited way. Their indispensable reduction, even moderate, is postponed sine die and to date, no provision limiting the authorization to open new ones has even seen the light of day.
Finally, it is necessary to underline the serious choice made by the Region on the issue ofdifferentiated autonomyin a way, if you like, a little less extreme than that practiced by the regions of Lombardy and Veneto, but still fitting into that decidedly negative and detrimental trend towards the universality of social rights.
In our association and movement there are several people who in 2020, faced with the risk that the Region would be handed over to the denialist, racist and super-liberal forces of the right, supported the Bonaccini coalition, giving their vote to lists that declared they wanted to represent the demands of the environmentalist world and of social, climate and democratic justice.
Today we believe that there are not the slightest conditions to reiterate the choice made at the time. The names that are mentioned as possible successors of the outgoing President highlight the desire for strong continuity.
Some presences closer to environmental issues have made the choice to support the Bonaccini council “regardless”, a mistake that should not be repeated. On the other hand, the fragmentation, self-referentiality and litigiousness of those who, despite sharing similar programs, presented themselves outside the coalition, were a disaster that excluded almost all groups from representation (except the 5 Stars), and prevented the development of a strong and effective opposition.
We trust above all in grassroots mobilization and struggles: RECA, due to its nature as a social entity, a network made up of numerous associations and social entities, does not intend to attempt its own electoral presence, but we are convinced that the theme of “political side” is unavoidable, so we need to be able to bring together all the forces, even different ones, that have the fate of the environment and climate justice at heart and create an alternative.
We therefore turn to all the political forces, even different ones, who have the fate of the environment and climate and social justice at heart and who share the substance of the proposals we have put forward above, to discuss with us and other social realities the possibility of constitute aalternative aimed at producing a strong discontinuity with respect to the existing scenario. And that this can already be determined in the next electoral deadlineverifying the conditions and prospects for build a unitary presence of critical, ecological and alternative thinking, in the forms we deem appropriate.
For these reasons, we call for sincere discussion, free of prejudice, free from flag interests and full of willingness to listen and political generosity, all the social and political realities interested in the horizon we have outlined, making available what has been elaborated in these years.
Emilia-Romagna Climate and Environmental Emergency Network, May 2024
