According to a report from the main Italian environmental association, in 2024 there was almost one extreme climatic event per day on the peninsula.
Published on 05/01/2025 08:06
Reading time: 2min
Italy is well placed to measure the effects of climate change: 351 extreme events (floods, intense rains, hailstorms, episodes of prolonged drought) in 2024, according to the count made by the environmental association Legambiente. Beyond the figure, what counts is the long-term evolution. If the number is down slightly compared to 2023, marked by the monster floods in Emilia Romagna, in ten years the number of these events has almost multiplied by six, according to the association.
What is increasing the most are episodes of drought and floods. And what the report describes is a country split in two. In the north, too much water at times, in the south, a cruel lack, in Sicily in particular which experienced a terrible year of drought. A little less extreme weather events in the center, Rome aside.
The summer of 2024 was the third hottest ever recorded in Italy, after those of 2023 and 2022, almost two degrees warmer than the average since the beginning of the 90s. Heat also in the mountains: to reach “thermal zero” ( the altitude to which one must climb for the temperature to drop to zero), this year it was necessary to climb to more than 5,200 meters in Piedmont, on the hottest day.
The country is the victim of a “punching ball effect”, explains a climatologist. Previously, the air circulated from west to east, now it is a south-north axis. From the south arrive very hot African anticyclones which bring drought, and when they come down they come into contact with cold air currents. This contrast causes torrential rains.
Among the adaptation measures taken, a new law on insurance. Because all of this obviously has a cost. That of floods in Emilia Romagna in 2023 is estimated between eight and ten billion euros. It is estimated that only 5% of companies are covered against this type of risk. From this year 2025, this will be mandatory.
