Valerio Molinari (CCSC): “We are no longer facing a simple threat, but the heart of the problem. Every delay is measured in lives, territories and millions of euros.”
Milan, 24 September 2025 – At the UN General Assembly, US President Donald Trump questioned the climate crisis by talking about European and UN alarmism. But, at least in Italy, the data tells another reality: climate change is already a daily emergency. This is confirmed by the new report by the Centro Studi sul Cambiamento Climatico (CCSC), a synthesis of the 20 regional reports already produced over the past 24 months, and now updated with the latest data, which depicts a country that is fragile, unprepared, and at growing risk.
There is in fact a new map of Italy. Not drawn by borders, but by damages: those left by torrential rains, furious hailstorms, heat waves and droughts that drain basins, crops and reserves. It is the map of the climate crisis, and it is already here.
The new report by the Centre for the Study of Climate Change (CCSC) offers an alarming but accurate picture: 351 extreme weather events in 2024 alone, 198 of which in the north. Emilia-Romagna alone suffered more than 50 destructive episodes, including Cyclone Boris, which turned entire river basins into hydraulic bombs. In Lombardy, more than 1,000 mm of rain fell between May and October, with landslides, flooding and blackouts on a vast scale.
‘This is not an anticipation. It is the chronicle of the present,‘ warns Valerio Molinari, president of the CCSC. “The projections we watched with concern five years ago have become daily bulletins. The climate has already changed our country. And we continue to chase, rather than prevent.”
A fragile country, a climate gone mad.
South Italy and the Islands face the opposite side of the same disaster: chronic drought. In Sicily, 2024 saw rainfall 40% below the historical average, with provinces such as Ragusa and Caltanissetta at absolute lows. Water is rationed, farms close, pastures disappear. In Sardinia, reservoirs are at 52% of capacity, with areas where water is treated as a resource for civil protection.
Meanwhile, warming accelerates. From 2010 to 2024, days with over 35°C have doubled. In Rome, it has gone from 4 to almost 28 scorching days a year. Terni is now the hottest city in Italy: 49 days above 35 degrees in 2024 alone.
The price of inaction
The climate crisis is not only environmental: it is economic, infrastructural, social. According to the CCSC, every euro invested in prevention today avoids at least six in future damage and reconstruction. But Italy continues to spend, when and if it spends, afterwards, not before.
In the two-year period 2023-2024 events with return times of over 200 years occurred in densely urbanised areas: Piedmont, Veneto, Emilia-Romagna. Rivers such as the Lamone, Idice or Lambro have flooded several times. In Macugnaga (VB), more than 550 mm of rain fell in a single night, with debris flows and isolated hamlets.
Planning today is surviving tomorrow
The heart of the CCSC’s message is simple but disruptive: either you plan, or you pay. There is no more room for improvisation. Italy must anticipate, prevent, manage.
An integrated, concrete, operational approach is needed. The report highlights three priorities:
- Urgently upgrade the water network, which today disperses up to 45% of drinking water;
- Launch serious plans for soil maintenance and coastal defence;
- Building regional adaptation strategies based on predictive and geo-localised data, to know where the next extreme event will strike and intervene in time.
“We possess scientific instruments and technologies capable of measuring the resilience of infrastructures,” Molinari recalls, “but knowing is not enough. Without action, those data remain a dead letter. Climate adaptation is not a luxury: it is the basis of national security.”
The CCSC proposes a national operational model that combines climate data, hydrogeological risk and infrastructure priorities. A concrete climate agenda, built far enough in advance to prevent the next flood or drought from becoming another heralded tragedy.
The future that awaits us if we do not change now
The most critical scenario predicts +6°C average increase in Italy by 2100. Tropical nights will exceed 110 per year in cities. Rainfall will be rare, but extreme: concentrated in 24-48 hours, in a country where the sewage network is not ready.
More than 7,400 Italian municipalities are already at risk of landslides or flooding according to ISPRA. Coasts are receding: 17.9 per cent of the coastline is already subject to severe erosion. And the domino effect on infrastructure, the economy and collective health is unstoppable if we do not act now.
“We have the chance to change course. But we must really want to,” Molinari concludes. “This time we will not be able to say that we did not know, and above all that the institutions were not aware of it, given that each of the reports produced over the years has been punctually sent to all the competent territorial institutions, region by region.