The provisional European agreement must be confirmed by the Strasbourg parliament
All areas in which the environmental targets are more difficult to reach due to specific climatic or orographic conditions will be able to request a 10-year exemption from the green objectives. The provisional agreement reached by the European institutions on the air directive provides a possible assistance to the regions of the Po basin, an area in which the Alps act as a barrier, favoring the stagnation of pollutants in the absence of recirculation, which however must be confirmed. The agreement will have to be sealed by the European Parliament and the member countries will then have to adopt it but “without this exemption that the Italian government managed to obtain – rejoices the head of the FdI delegation in Brussels Carlo Fidanza – the consequences for the regions of the Po basin would have led to the agricultural and industrial desertification”.
Smog decreasing
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In Lombardy, first level measures against smog remain active in nine out of 12 provinces, while in Emilia-Romagna there is a respite from the “red dot” emergency precautions given the expected arrival of a weather disturbance which from Thursday 22 February could bring air cold and possible rain. The WHO also points out that fine dust pollution has decreased in Italy in recent years, although it adds that it is still not enough. PM10 concentrations dropped by 45% between 2013 and 2022 but in 2022 the daily limit value of national legislation was exceeded on 20% of days. And so Italy is still far from respecting the limits recommended by the same organization. Meanwhile, the director of the Pneumology unit of the San Giuseppe Hospital in Milan Sergio Harari recalls that the masks used during Covid can help retain fine particles, “especially Ffp2”.