Even in the face of the vast Los Angeles wildfires—still ongoing—as in other recent circumstances, the media's attention is primarily focused on the most immediate and “proximal” causes: the malfunctioning of the power grid, insufficient water reserves, the unpreparedness of newly hired firefighters, and so on. Often these explanations are pretextual (such as the protection of the Delta smelt, an endangered fish species, which allegedly led to insufficient water supply from the Los Angeles Bay) but, above all, they reflect a tendency to ignore and avoid discussing overarching and long-term causes, essentially climate change. It is as if acknowledging that climate change is primarily caused by fossil fuel use and land exploitation is no longer permissible in the era of rampant neoliberalism. Without understanding the causal chain, “extreme” events are inevitably bound to increase in intensity and frequency, and we aim to explain why.

The rise in temperature, which increases year by year, is associated with other atmospheric disturbances that collectively constitute climate change. It is crucial to emphasize that this is not just about rising temperatures but also about changes in the water cycle (and thus both rainfall and drought), shifts in wind patterns, and so forth. These global phenomena are the root cause of individual episodes (Valencia, Los Angeles). Local contributing factors, such as over-urbanization, deforestation, power grid failures, and inadequate containment responses, then exacerbate the effects. Focusing solely on local contributing factors is pretextual: in which parts of the world are there not at least some vulnerabilities that increase susceptibility to climate change? Fires and floods can occur almost anywhere, given the widespread elements of weakness that amplify vulnerability to climate change. In this sense, the local causes invoked “ad hoc” (consider the debates following the Valencia flood) can be compared to the “speck” in the Gospel, where the “log” is climate change (for those unfamiliar, the reference is to the Gospel of Matthew, 7:1-5). However, this distinction does not seem clear to many Italian journalists (unlike the Guardian, which dedicates a daily section to climate change).

To limit future global warming, we must drastically and immediately reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The technologies are already available: we just need to decide to invest in decarbonization projects that reduce emissions by at least 7% per year, year after year, to achieve the goal of net-zero emissions by 2050. Mitigation actions (i.e., emission reductions) must be accompanied by adaptation measures to make territories more resilient and capable of withstanding the impact of extreme events. The “log” must not distract from the “specks,” which are often significant in themselves. We must also address the contributing factors, which generally include land misuse; however, these interventions will be ineffective if the overarching global problem is not tackled.

The goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions should be shared by all political forces, as it brings both direct and indirect benefits to everyone. Since Italy is located in an area particularly vulnerable to climate change, it is in the country’s interest to achieve decarbonization as quickly as possible. Estimates from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change suggest that with investments equivalent to approximately 2% of Gross National Product (GNP), the net-zero emissions target could be reached by 2050. This should be a common objective for all, both governing and opposition parties. Postponing decarbonization benefits only a few powerful lobbies that are interested in delaying it to continue using fossil fuels.

The Acceleration of Climate Change

The temperature of the atmosphere continues to rise at an increasingly rapid pace (0.28^oC per decade between 2002–2024, compared to 0.11^oC per decade between 1980–2001), with significant regional differences: the average warming in Europe is about 2.5 times the global average, reaching approximately 3.75^oC instead of 1.5^oC. The years 2024 and 2023 are the hottest since pre-industrial times and likely the hottest in the last 125,000 years. On Friday, January 10, the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) confirmed that the global average surface temperature in 2024 was 1.6^oC warmer than the pre-industrial period. In 2023, it was 1.48^oC warmer.

Continued warming leads to an increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme events, causing ever-greater damage to populations and ecosystems. For each extreme event, World Weather Attribution (WWA), a network of researchers from various institutions established in 2014 to investigate causal links between climate and catastrophic events, calculates the impact of climate change on the intensity and frequency of these events. For instance, WWA determined that in Hurricane Helene in the USA, observed rainfall was 70% more likely to occur, and winds were 150% stronger due to climate change. For the Valencia flood in September 2024, WWA concluded that such events are 12% more intense and twice as likely to occur because of climate change. Conversely, for the Emilia Romagna flood in May 2023, WWA concluded that climate change did not significantly increase the frequency or intensity of such events in that region.

The effects of climate change on human health are manifold. Limiting the discussion to immediate impacts, Hurricane Helene caused at least 130 deaths in the United States, the Valencia flood caused at least 205 deaths, and the 2023 heatwave led to 47,000 excess deaths in Europe. These are just a few examples limited to wealthy countries, to which indirect effects, such as increased risks of infectious diseases and damage to agriculture and food production, must be added.

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions brings co-benefits beyond limiting future global warming. For example, reducing the use of combustion engines leads to less pollution, positively impacting health. For countries like Italy, reducing fossil fuel use (coal, fuel oil, and methane) would also lead to greater economic independence and lower electricity production costs, as Spain has demonstrated in recent years.

The human, social, and economic costs of these phenomena are very high and, in the medium to long term, will exceed the costs of mitigation—that is, reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In the United States alone, the number of disasters costing over $1 billion each rose from six in 2002 to 18 in 2022 and 28 in 2023. The BBC reports that damages from wildfires in the Los Angeles area in early January 2025 are estimated at $135 billion.

Obstacles to Political Decisions

Political decision-making difficulties arise primarily from uncertainty about which solutions are most cost-effective and should be prioritized. Initiatives like those of the Wellcome Trust and ESRC in the UK, which aim to produce systematic reviews of the scientific literature on mitigation solutions, including co-benefits and costs, are highly valuable.

For Italy, it is undeniable that drastic and immediate greenhouse gas emission reductions would bring benefits, as the country is located in a region more exposed to climate change than many others. Achieving the European Union’s ‘Fit-for-55’ target by 2030 and the net-zero target by 2050 offers greater benefits than costs, co-benefits for citizens and ecosystems, reduced energy dependency on fossil fuel-producing countries, and lower energy production costs. For these reasons, it is in the interest of all political forces to quickly promote decarbonization and advocate for the EU’s decarbonization policies while convincing all countries worldwide that achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 is in the collective interest. Conversely, delaying emission reductions and perpetuating fossil fuel dependency is short-sighted and harmful to the country.

The need for mitigation underscores the necessity of global interventions. However, it seems that public discussion on mitigation is currently stagnant, and it is difficult to discern a shared strategy. In Italy as well, an analysis of the obstacles and opportunities must be stimulated. We highlight some of the difficulties:

• The lack of sufficiently widespread consensus, as evidenced by protests from farmers in various European countries, is an obstacle to political decisions. The absence of consensus arises in some cases from objective economic and productive difficulties and in many cases from sectoral or ideological considerations. Often, too much space is given to powerful lobbies that have a clear interest in delaying decarbonization, even though this goes against the interests of the majority of the country's citizens;
• There is a need for cultural evolution that leads citizens to become globally responsible individuals who address the global changes characterizing the modern era. Only cultural evolution can provide the necessary political pressure and influence government choices;
• Dissenters facing objective difficulties (productive sectors penalized by the transition) must be economically supported, and dissenters driven by ideological reasons must be persuaded through social pressure and regulations.

Individual Actions

The essential measures are those outlined by the IEA, the Green Deal, and other similar initiatives mentioned earlier, which require coordinated political action. Individual actions matter only if there is a general climate of commitment and shared objectives, starting with governments. Without investments that enable choices with zero greenhouse gas emissions, individual citizens can do very little.

For example, let us consider transportation. Just as during the early days of the combustion engine automobile era, states invested in infrastructure to make their use possible, today substantial investments are necessary to make electric mobility viable and to shift individuals' choices toward public transportation. Without investments that make railway transport efficient even on regional lines, it is hard to imagine individuals favoring it over personal cars. And without significant investment in charging systems, it is unlikely that individuals will replace combustion-engine cars with electric ones. Without investments in alternative energy (solar, wind, hydroelectric) that reduce energy costs and enable reductions in greenhouse gas emissions related to electricity production, achieving decarbonization goals is difficult. Despite some progress (an 8% reduction in European emissions in 2023), globally, we are still behind the Paris targets of net-zero emissions by 2050.

Here are some individual behaviors that can significantly contribute to mitigating climate change:

• Reducing meat consumption;
• Using cars less and favoring public transportation, walking, and cycling when possible, and reducing air travel;
• Promoting recycling;
• Reducing unnecessary consumption and the production of waste and rubbish;
• Respecting and protecting green spaces;
• Investing in ecologically-oriented funds (e.g., ESG);
• Reducing electricity consumption.

Changes in individual behaviors make sense in the context of active political engagement, which primarily involves the drastic and immediate elimination of fossil fuels and the transition to renewable energies. We expect governments to respect and implement the European Green Deal and achieve the European Union's ‘Fit-for-55’ target by 2030 as a first step toward net-zero emissions. In a positive political climate, focused on ecological transition and the industrial and agricultural reconversion, we expect that individual behaviors will also be encouraged and promoted. On the contrary, policies that support the use of fossil fuels (for instance, the European Environment Agency (EEA) reports that in 2022, fossil fuel subsidies in Europe amounted to €25 billion) or delay measures to achieve the net-zero emissions target by 2050 only signal to individual citizens that the problem is not so urgent.