Politecnico di Milano presents green city declaration on climate change adaptation, 25 Italian cities sign up

On 16 July the second Green City National Conference was held at the Politecnico di Milano. The Italian cities met to relaunch action on climate change and to protect themselves from the consequences of the climate crisis.

Within this framework, a number of Italian cities signed a 10-point declaration on climate change adaptation. The first cities to sign up to the "Green City declaration on climate change adaptation" are Assisi, Belluno, Bergamo, Casalecchio di Reno, Chieti, Cisterna di Latina, Cosenza, Firenze, Genova, Imola, Livorno, Mantova, Milano, Monterotondo, Napoli, Padova, Palermo, Parma, Pordenone, Roma, Siracusa, Sorradile, Tivoli, Torino, Venezia.

The 2nd Green City National Conference was dedicated to cities’ adaptation to climate change and aimed to increase knowledge of climate change adaptation policies and measures and draw greater attention to an issue that is so crucial to people’s wellbeing and quality of life.

The event was organised by Green City Network, the “network” promoted by the Sustainable Development Foundation to develop activities and interventions to make Italian cities greener, in collaboration with the City of Milan and the Politecnico di Milano, with the Patronage of the Order of Architects of the Province of Milan and the Order of Doctors of Agronomy and the Doctors of Forestry of Milan and with the support of Amundi, Montello SpA, Utilitalia, ING, FaterSMART and Key Energy – Ecomondo.

Italy is more exposed than other countries to the impacts of climate change and is 2nd in Europe in terms of economic losses created by climate change at more than €63bn (EU Commission, 2018). Future warming in the Mediterranean region is expected to exceed global rates by 25%, with summer warming 40% higher than the global average. The European Copernicus Programme recently published data on temperatures in the month of June 2019 and the statistics confirm it: this was the hottest June in Europe since records began with temperatures approximately 2°C higher than normal.

Overall, financial losses recorded in Europe in the period 1980-2016 caused by meteorological phenomena and other extreme climate-related events exceeded €436bn. In the face of such an impact, at European level, only 26% of cities have drawn up a climate adaptation plan, 17% have a joint plan for mitigation and adaptation, while 33% do not have any local climate plan.

For more information: 
Green City Climate Change Adaptation Declaration (pdf)

This release was first published 17 July 2019 by Politecnico di Milano.