A road to make lands carbon neutral | Simone Bastianoni | TEDxMantova

How can a small territory become an inspiration for others on the road to decarbonisation? In this talk, Simone Bastianoni shares the decarbonization project of the province of Siena in Tuscany, an example of success and an opportunity to generate skills that are available to all the territories that want to take this path.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community.

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[Action Calls, Generates,
Creates, Inspires Action]

[The countdown leaves no way out]

[We can stop climate change]

Hello everyone.

It is possible to live well and thrive

in a world, in a land
that is "carbon neutral":

where our greenhouse gas emissions

are absorbed by local forests?

This thing asks us too many sacrifices,
or the cost of doing nothing

is still higher than sticking
with the status quo?

try to improve in this regard?

Well, one of the things

that impressed me most, recently,

was that some economists,
also rather important,

stated sentences
that they have been exactly -

they tried to clarify
the situation a little, like:

the possible failure

of policies for mitigation
and adaptation to climate change

is the number one risk by impact,
and the number two by probability,

in the next ten years,

for economic development.

Well then, maybe you have heard

of Europe's commitment, by 2050,
to become carbon neutral.

But there are cities,
even important, large ones,

that made important commitments

in trying to reach these goals
even earlier than 2050.

You may not know yet, however,

that there is a land,
the province of Siena,

that already got there.

It got there in 2011,
and I'll show you how.

This story begins in 2006, basically,

Our research group

was called to meter the Province's
greenhouse gas emissions.

In 2008, the first report was certified

according to ISO 14064
international standard.

You see the emissions in grey,
the reuptake in green;

and you can see the emissions,
over the first year,

exceeding the reuptakes,

which only represented
72 percent of the emissions.

Now, imagine the scenario:
I present this thing -

of which, in fact, there was
a very important new element

because we were, as far as we know,

the first in the world

to have a certified analysys
for a territory -

which brought a galvanized
president of the Province

to say: “OK, good.

Given the brilliant result,

we want to become
'carbon neutral' by 2015".

Well, at that moment, I felt bad.

While everyone was cheering,
a movie suddenly started in my head:

like, someone is driving, the car is stuck
and he punches the steering wheel?

Well, in that moment,
I felt like the steering wheel.

(Laugh)

Luckily, though,
things didn't go too badly:

indeed, they went very well
because a virtuous circle was triggered.

Because the Province
has decided, in this period,

not to base its policies

only on economic measurements,

using Euro as a key indicator.

They also decided to use
a "strange" indicator:

tons of CO2 equivalent

And so in that period,
precisely in that period of time,

not only has the Province provided
the data to be analyzed,

but it has also formulated policies;

and then, our research group
was the one who did the analysys

and also measured the goodness of policies

with the help of these indicators.

A thorough scrutiny was in place

for all data and methodologies.

And several policies
were implemented in recent years.

For example, I start
with the most striking ones:

a Provincial Energy Plan

which led to energy independence

in the Siena province.

They used to import electricity:
now it began to export it.

This is thanks to a substantial increase
of renewable energies,

and the geothermal share.

A waste plan that led
from more than 40 landfills to one,

and the waste-to-energy plant
was enlarged, and expanded

which has contributed further,
in fact, to energy independence.

Much smaller things were also implemented:

an annual revision was imposed
on the water boilers, for instance.

And this "little" thing,

which by many citizens
was experienced as an oppression,

actually at the end of this period
verifiedly brought

to a 30 percent less
of methane consumption.

100 euros well spent
by each citizen, every year.

And the actual forest extension
also played a part,

along with a forest protection policy,

and a enhanced increased fire protection,

that powered a nearly 20 percent
increase in forest area.

And you see, over time,
what happened to the balance sheet.

Since 2011 the yellow line,
that of the net balance

went to the green side,
went to the reuptake side,

and not the emissions' one.

See how fairly steady this remains,

with just slight fluctuations,
year after year.

Keep in mind that, in this period,

the GDP of the province
increased by 20 percent.

So speaking about serious renunciations,

you see that they're really not necessary.

So did everything work out fine?

Well, yes and no:

everything worked fine "result-wise";

communication, however,
didn't work out as well.

Still today, when we go around

and share - also in Siena -
that the Province is "carbon neutral",

we see these faces.

I acknowledge the younger collaborators,
who took part to this joke.

Because they are, say, amazed at best:

otherwise, completely skeptical.

And let's say, to symbolize

and also try and urge the authorities

to do a little more communication,

I always showed this slide
after presenting balance sheets,

asking: "Where was this photo taken?"

And the answers were always:

"Ah, in that small town",
"that other small town", etc.

The answer was, this photo
was not taken anywhere,

because this is a photo insertion
made by our cooperators

putting, with Photoshop,
a sign that was not there.

So let's say that, in this period,

we understood precisely what went wrong:

a completely "top down" project,

where citizens only participated
in a very limited form;

and indeed, they sometimes suffered
the choices we made for them.

We decided to overturn this approach:

we moved on to a different concept,
one of "Territorial Alliance".

Something like the Alliance
for Sustainable Development,

that's the same idea.

In which, in fact, there is no one
who forces us to do something,

but there are allies who decide
to do something more

to further improve the situation.

The idea of the Alliance

is to make known, as best as possible,

what happened and what are the
characteristics of the territory

that allow this to happen.

Raise awareness of participation

and also, let's say,
have a breath of pride:

you know that, to date,

there is no company
in the province of Siena

which uses the fact of being
"carbon neutral" in its marketing.

Not a single one!

Raise awareness of participation,
and create a breath of pride,

could go precisely in this sense.

These two factors, then,
are the ones that will be decisive

to consolidate the result
in the long term.

Then we also said

that, all in all, we could have been an
example for other territories.

Because we have done our path:

we did our good things

and our bad things,
those that didn't work;

so we have to tell the world
all these things.

But before seeing this aspect,
our project's portability,

let's take another small zoom

and let's see what happens
in the Siena province.

Green areas, obviously,
are the best reuptakers.

Red ones are the emitters.

Obviously, this also means
different policies to do,

obviously, on green areas,
maybe light green or white,

perhaps we need to try to increase
the forest cover:

on the red ones,instead,
operations need to be done

maybe even urban furnishing
and city trees, which are important:

however, other things set the priority.

If we zoom in on Siena again,

we see that 28% of emissions

come from the city of Siena,
from the whole province -

but only two percent of the reuptake.

And I'll show you for a moment

how could a path
of city decarbonisation work.

Here you see, in the red part,
the real Municipality of Siena;

the green part, on the other hand,
is the forest that would be needed

to offset the emissions
of the Municipality of Siena.

In the lower part, in light green,

instead there are green areas
that really exist.

And we also attributed the emissions

to several energy sectors, transport,
to agriculture and so on,

among the waste -

and here we have also colored them
to let you see them better.

At this point, we can plan
a decarbonisation strategy -

what to do to decarbonise.

So, if we remove emissions

which are absorbed locally,
from existing green areas,

we saw a piece at the base disappear,

which concerned agriculture,

and almost all the solid waste part.

If we swap all of our bulbs,

replacing them with LEDs
instead of old fashioned ones,

a piece of the hole
will disappear at the top.

If, however, we begin
to use the roofs of the sheds

of the artisan and industrial areas
on the outskirts of Siena,

we see another relevant reduction.

And this thing could go on,

with policies on house insulation

that would lead, let's say,

to a relevant reduction
of the orange part:

and so on, until reaching neutrality.

We have already done this,
and we can do it again.

So, is the model exportable?

Yes, everything is exportable:
both in the first part, let's say,

which was driven by carbon neutrality;

and in this last piece here.

Because the Province of Siena
actually has peculiar characteristics:

the low population,
the low population density,

a large territory,
the presence of geothermal energy;

however this fact had an impact
above all in the first part.

It did not particularly affect
in the improvement part,

which was in fact, in a few years,
from 72 to 108 percent.

And this without the help
of the population, in a sense,

who underwent this piece of the journey.

And therefore,

by involving the population
from the very beginning,

another area might even outpace Siena.

And I believe that it is precisely
completely exportable,

and not visionary,

think to halve the emissions in 2030.

And lastly, a record:
what do we have? What's missing?

What we have, up to now,
is the knowledge to make an analysis.

It's the data.

Most of the data
available for policy making

we already have them.

Technological ability?

There certainly is,
and we will see it even later today.

Ability to plan?

There is also this:
especially in this last period,

our planners have begun
to think about our cities

in a very different way
than the current one.

What's missing now?

There is no knowledge,
no widespread awareness,

that these issues
are urgent and important.

And they are: economists said it
at the beginning of my presentation.

A greater engagement
of the production system,

because there are
only a few front runners

who do, in this direction,
some really important things;

and a political leadership
that leads to important actions.

Because only from the union of citizens,
administrators and businesses

we can consider supporting
any needed change

to eliminate the CO2
out of our territories

and start a development
based on the environment quality,

not on environment looting.

And then, the thing
I really wish to happen

is that these experiences,
all the experiences that are starting,

were widely shared,

so that no one has to reinvent
the path from scratch.

Ideas, administrative procedures,

are there to be shared between everyone,

as together is better than alone.

We had to pioneer, in that regard:

but creating a network
of "carbon neutral" areas

will be a crucial step to take
in the future, I think.

Parma is starting in this direction;

Bologna is starting; Belluno also is.

And then, cobbling together
all these experiences

can truly be the turning point

to ensure our lands' transition
towards "Carbon Neutral".

Thank you.

(Applause)