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CLIMATE CRISIS

The three Italian regions hit hardest by the climate crisis

Three Italian regions are among the top 10 most at-risk parts of Europe set to suffer the worst effects of the climate crisis, a new study has revealed.

Published: 22 February 2023 17:00 CET
Firemen assess the damage caused by a landslide in Laglio on July 28, 2021, after heavy rain caused floods in towns surrounding Lake Como in the Lombardy region of northern Italy.
Firemen assess the damage caused by a landslide in Laglio on July 28, 2021, after heavy rain caused floods in towns surrounding Lake Como in the Lombardy region of northern Italy. Photo by MIGUEL MEDINA / AFP.

The northern Italian regions of Veneto, Lombardy and Emilia Romagna rank fourth, fifth and eighth respectively on a list of ten European regions predicted to be most exposed to extreme weather events by 2050.

The findings were published by the Cross Dependency Initiative or XDI Systems, a platform that provides climate change risk analysis services.

XDI’s Gross Domestic Climate Risk dataset models the impacts of climate change from 1990 to 2050 across 2,600 global territories.

Niedersachsen in Germany tops the list of Europe’s most at-risk areas, followed by Vlaanderen in Belgium and Krasnodar in Russia.

READ ALSO: Why Italy is braced for another major drought this spring

Veneto, Lombardy and Hauts-de-France come next, with Stavropol in Russia, Emilia Romagna, Bayern in Germany and Rostov in Russia completing the top ten.

The analysis focuses on eight different climate hazards, including extreme heat, forest fires, drought-related soil movement, flooding, coastal inundation, extreme wind and freeze thaw.

Europe is particularly vulnerable to river and surface flooding, coastal inundation and forest fires, the report says.

XDI’s analysis focuses in particular on the cost of damage to property and infrastructure as a result of extreme weather, using what the company refers to as a ‘Damage Ratio’ as its key metric.

Venice and Milan are both singled out as European cities expected to suffer a particularly high Damage Ratio in 2050, along with Antwerp, Hanover and Lille.

Veneto, Lombardy and Emilia Romagna were among five Italian regions that last year declared a state of emergency as a result of a record-breaking drought, with meteorologists already fearing that 2023 could be even worse.

READ ALSO:

Historic flooding in Venice, the capital of the Veneto region, in 2019 was estimated by the city’s mayor to have caused one billion euros’ worth of damage.

In September 2022, the Italian farmers’ association Coldiretti released figures based on data from the European Severe Weather Database (ESWD) showing that Italy had experienced a five-fold rise in extreme weather events over the past ten years.

“We are seeing the clear consequences of climate change, as exceptional weather events are now the norm in Italy,” the organisation said.

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CLIMATE CRISIS

‘Extreme’ climate blamed for world’s worst wine harvest in 62 years

World wine production dropped 10 percent last year, the biggest fall in more than six decades, because of "extreme" climate changes, the body that monitors the trade said on Thursday.

Published: 26 April 2024 08:48 CEST
'Extreme' climate blamed for world's worst wine harvest in 62 years

“Extreme environmental conditions” including droughts, fires and other problems with climate were mostly to blame for the drastic fall, said the International Organisation of Vine and Wine (OIV) that covers nearly 50 wine producing countries.

Australia and Italy suffered the worst, with 26 and 23 percent drops. Spain lost more than a fifth of its production. Harvests in Chile and South Africa were down by more than 10 percent.

The OIV said the global grape harvest was the worst since 1961, and worse even than its early estimates in November.

In further bad news for winemakers, customers drank three per cent less wine in 2023, the French-based intergovernmental body said.

Director John Barker highlighted “drought, extreme heat and fires, as well as heavy rain causing flooding and fungal diseases across major northern and southern hemisphere wine producing regions.”

Although he said climate problems were not solely to blame for the drastic fall, “the most important challenge that the sector faces is climate change.

“We know that the grapevine, as a long-lived plant cultivated in often vulnerable areas, is strongly affected by climate change,” he added.

France bucked the falling harvest trend, with a four percent rise, making it by far the world’s biggest wine producer.

Wine consumption last year was however at its lowest level since 1996, confirming a fall-off over the last five years, according to the figures.

The trend is partly due to price rises caused by inflation and a sharp fall in wine drinking in China – down a quarter – due to its economic slowdown.

The Portuguese, French and Italians remain the world’s biggest wine drinkers per capita.

Barker said the underlying decrease in consumption is being “driven by demographic and lifestyle changes. But given the very complicated influences on global demand at the moment,” it is difficult to know whether the fall will continue.

“What is clear is that inflation is the dominant factor affecting demand in 2023,” he said.

Land given over to growing grapes to eat or for wine fell for the third consecutive year to 7.2 million hectares (17.7 million acres).

But India became one of the global top 10 grape producers for the first time with a three percent rise in the size of its vineyards.

France, however, has been pruning its vineyards back slightly, with its government paying winemakers to pull up vines or to distil their grapes.

The collapse of the Italian harvest to its lowest level since 1950 does not necessarily mean there will be a similar contraction there, said Barker.

Between floods and hailstones, and damp weather causing mildew in the centre and south of the country, the fall was “clearly linked to meteorological conditions”, he said.

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