Italy should play "protagonist" role in int'l climate negotiations: PM

As the clock ticks toward the end-of-the-year summit in Paris that will take place with the aim of finalizing the world's first global climate agreement, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi says Italy will play a protagonist role in the process.

Speaking Monday at an all-day climate change meeting in parliament with at least half a dozen ministers on hand, Renzi said, "Italy's voice must be heard."

Renzi called for greater international cooperation, urging world leaders to put aside political differences.

"We have to understand that greenhouse gasses are the enemy," Renzi said, referring to the gasses scientists say contribute to climate change.

Other speakers Monday included Gian Luca Galletti, Italy's minister of environment, and Segolene Royal, the minister of economy and sustainable development for France. Most of the speakers stressed a similar theme: the need for an integrated, global approach to solving a global problem.

According to Erasmo D'Angelis, one of Renzi's key advisors on environmental issues, the problem is particularly poignant in Italy. D'Angelis said that in the early 1900s, Italy suffered from "four or five" extreme weather events each year. But these events, which scientists say become more frequent and stronger because of changing temperatures, have risen dramatically: to around 350 in 2013, and more than 400 last year.

"It is costing the government 3.5 billion euros (around 3.9 billion U.S. dollars) in costs, and lives are lost, buildings destroyed," D'Angelis said.

France's Royal pointed out the rising temperatures are making the ongoing migration crisis more severe by making the homelands of many of the migrants less hospitable. She said cash-strapped European countries should change the way of looking at the problem.

"Facing climate change is not a weight but a responsibility," she said, pointing to new environmentally friendly jobs that would be created as European economies shift to renewable sources of energy.

Francesco Rutelli, the former mayor of Rome and one-time challenger for the prime minister's office now working as the head of the Center for a Sustainable Future, an environmental lobby group, said success at the Paris climate summit is not guaranteed, saying "a Copenhagen-type disaster can still happen in Paris."

The Danish capital of Copenhagen hosted a similar summit in 2009, the last time the word tried to agree to a global climate deal. Those talks collapsed, ending without a binding treaty.

That is why, Renzi said, Italy must cooperate with the French hosts to assure the Paris summit is a success.

Renzi said Italy would host a special set of ministerial-level meetings in October in the northern city of Milan to help lay the groundwork for Paris. He also said Italy should play a lead role in negotiations between now and the Paris meetings and take steps to lower its own domestic environmental impact.

"Paris starts less than six months from now, but the challenge of working to make those negotiations successful starts tomorrow," Renzi said. "Every country has to take its responsibility."

Galletti, the Italian minister, agreed: "We all have to work together with a single goal, which is to save the planet." Endit