(ANSA) – ROME, JULY 19 – Italy ranks first among the countries with the highest health costs deriving from the use of natural gas in thermoelectric plants, with 2.17 billion euros. These are the data on the 27 EU states plus the United Kingdom contained in the report by WWF and Greenhouse Gas Management Institute Ghgmi “Methane emissions in Italy” which calculates 8.7 billion costs for the entire area. In 2019 alone, 2,864 premature deaths were due to the use of energy produced from natural gas, in addition there are 15,000 cases of respiratory impacts on adults and children, over 4,100 hospital admissions and more than 5 million working days lost due to illness.
Methane emissions also play “a fundamental role in avoiding rising temperatures”, according to WWF. Emissions of the second anthropogenic greenhouse gas, after carbon dioxide, have increased by 47% from pre-industrial times to today, and have reached the highest levels of the last 800,000 years.
Methane is a “more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide”, with a global warming potential about 80 times stronger per unit of mass on a 20-year time scale, but it also has a shorter lifespan in the atmosphere and this means that “achieving significant reductions would have a rapid and effective effect on atmospheric warming potential”.
In 2019, Italy’s methane emissions amounted to approximately 1,700 thousand tons, 12.9% less than the value recorded in 1990 and the sectors that provide the most significant contribution are agriculture with 44.2% , waste management with 37.9% and energy with 17.9%. Between 2000 and 2019, the country is only 18th in Europe for emissions cuts.
“We will try to ensure that the government does its part”, is the commitment of the Climate and Energy Manager of WWF Italy Mariagrazia Midulla. “We are very worried about gas at the moment”, Midulla declares, “we foresee contracts for regasifiers up to 2043 in the various decrees, this is a way of predicting our energy future that is very inconsistent with the commitments we have made”. (HANDLE).
Source: Ansa
I have been working in the news industry for over 10 years now and I have worked for some of the biggest news websites in the world. My focus has always been on entertainment news, but I also cover a range of other topics. I am currently an author at Global happenings and I love writing about all things pop-culture related.
