Italy's deadly floods just latest example of climate change's all-or-nothing weather extremes
The HinduMay 20, 2023
On Saturday, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni made an early departure from the G7 summit in Japan to deal with the worst flooding seen in the country in a century; at least 14 people have been left dead and more than 36K homeless.
The northern and eastern regions of Emilia Romagna and Le Marche have been entirely submerged in water, with streets transformed into rivers after around six months' worth of rain fell on Italy in 48 hours.
Northern Italy's fertile flat land is particularly vulnerable to flooding and is susceptible to landslides during heavy rains. However, as torrential rains usually hit Italy only once every 100 to 150 years, Italy's geographic vulnerability to climate disasters is tough for the administration to deal with, as it is not financially or politically justifiable to make the infrastructural changes needed to defend against this kind of flooding. Meloni's government is responding as effectively as possible to this emergency.
Italy has learned nothing from the last year's devastating flash floods or from the country's worst drought in seven decades. Despite the crescendo of extreme weather events, Italian policymakers are continuing to pretend that nothing is happening. The government must do more to future-proof Italy against catastrophic devastation with longer term investment, including through the allocation of the billions of dollars necessary to counter hydrogeological instability.
There's a 75% chance that the rate of people affected by natural disasters in 2052 will be at least 12K/100K, according to the Metaculus prediction community.