Italians reject the Meloni government on climate change, saying it has not done enough

Brussels – Droughts, fires, mudslides, and floods: when it comes to addressing bad weather and climate, Italians give the Meloni government a failing grade, as they consider it inattentive and even less effective in preventing, mitigating, and managing climate change risks. This is the opinion of 75 percent of the Italians interviewed by Eurobarometer between February and March this year for the special thematic survey. So, for three out of four Italians, the national government “hasn’t done enough” to tackle increasingly frequent climate-related phenomena.

The Italian figure is a rebuke of the Meloni government, considering that compared to responses to the same question between May and June 2023, belief in the ineffectiveness of the national executive’s action has increased by one percentage point. Moreover, Italians’ skepticism is higher than the European average (in the EU it is 67 percent, on average, say that little is being done at the national level against climate change) and the fifth most disliked in Europe after Sweden and France (77 percent), Greece and Croatia (76 percent).

Italians implicitly call for a more attentive government, as they widely believe that it is the national government that is in a privileged position to manage and govern the challenge of climate change (71 percent) compared to other actors, such as the European Union (66 percent). It is precisely why the overwhelming majority of respondents (91 percent) would like to be well-prepared at the national level to respond to the challenges posed by climate change and its increasingly problematic trend.

Finally, a message that applies to both the government and the EU: Italians are willing to change cars and switch to electric if there are public incentives, but only as long as these are taken away from traditional fossil fuels and redirected to what is clean and helpful in responding to the emissions at the root of climate change (86 percent).