Italy's prime minister Giorgia Meloni today called for pragmatism in approaching the "historic challenge" of energy transition.
The ambitious goals of tripling renewable energy capacity and doubling annual energy efficiency gains by 2030, agreed in the first global stocktake at the UN Cop 28 climate summit in the UAE, are far from being achieved, Meloni said at Abu Dhabi sustainability week, but "this must not frighten us or lead us to step back".
The IEA found in June last year that current renewable energy plans — the so-called nationally determined contributions (NDCs) — for 2030 fall short of the ambition set at Cop 28, and that most countries need to up their targets in new plans due to be submitted this year.
Meloni suggested countries should think in new ways, adding that decarbonisation plans cannot "come at the price of economic desertification." Ideology cannot stand in the way of methods that could help build a viable alternative to fossil fuels, she added. She also called for "overcoming the anachronistic division between developed nations and emerging ones, so as to share responsibilities".
"We need a balanced energy mix based on the technologies we have in place, those we are experimenting with and those yet to identify," she said, referring to renewables energies, such as wind and solar, green hydrogen but also biofuels, gas, carbon capture and nuclear fusion.
Since assuming office, Meloni has supported a rebound in Italian gas production. But the country's gas-fired generation hit its lowest in six years in 2024, as a result of higher generation from renewable energy sources. Italy aims to have 131.3GW of installed renewable capacity by 2030 and is among the European countries with the highest ambitions.
Meloni is also a supporter of nuclear energy, with Italy now aiming to meet at least 11pc of its power demand with nuclear energy by 2050. Rome had previously banned nuclear power in a referendum in 1987 after the Chernobyl disaster.
