Bioenergy: meeting in Bologna on the way to Paris

Renewable energy sources and bioenergy in particular will return as current issues in 2015 at the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris taking up the reduction of emissions. Itabia and FederUnacoma used the occasion of EIMA International to pursue a debate and open comparisons of planning instruments on these issues of renewable energy sources and the prospects of exporting to countries abroad the models for the development of the sector planned and fine turned in Italy

Only recently the UN Climate Change Conference in Lima came to a close. The document produced by the conference, signed by the 145 nations taking part, pointed to a binding and global agreement on limiting the warming of the climate to become the basis for work, following the Kyoto Protocol, in Paris scheduled for the current year on quantifiable and equitable emission reductions as well as producing detailed information on activities to pursue. For all the countries involved it will be necessary to exercise diplomacy and their dialogue capabilities required to establish the synergies needed to overcome the differences between the industrialized and developing nations, those which are involved in differing ways in the responsibility for global warming. In this connection, EIMA International – on the strength of the EIMA Energy Salon featured as a specialized forum on the issue of bioenergy – added a contribution by promoting debate and fostering exchanges of experiences at the national and international levels.  

The full schedule of conferences set up by FederUnacoma for the trade fair event was opened by one organized in collaboration with Itabia, the Italian Biomass Association,  on the theme, Biomass and the Land: Experiences in Italy for the New International Markets. Among the points brought out by the conference was Italy’s commitment focused on enhancing the value of biomass as an energy source which has produced in recent years virtuous models of production chains which can be duplicated and sent abroad. Other than generating a positive fallout for the environment and the land, this sector has, in fact, led directly and indirectly to the creation of thousands of jobs and additional earnings for many enterprises operating in the primary sector. It is now essential, in Italy just as it is globally, to rethink the economic and social paradigm by training attention on problems regarding safeguarding the environment and human health. Moreover, acting on this premise and in light of the binding goals of producing energy from renewable sources, the Ministry for Agricultural, Food and Forestry Policy, MiPAAF, began work for the creation of a specific agency for tackling bioenergy by tapping into the potential of agriculture and forestry in Italy to further the battle against climate change while safeguarding the environment and progressively decarbonizing energy consumption. In this framework, in April 2012 the ministry set up a Bioenergy Production Chain Table which brought together the leading figures in the sector, researchers, representatives from various categories, environmental associations and national, regional and local public administrators. For an initial approach to methodology – another point which came to the fore at the FederUnacoma-Itabia conference – it was agreed to establish three separate work groups for the three issues given priority for the development of the sector. The three areas are: 1) Technology: biomass, biofuels, bioliquids, biogas, biomethane, green chemistry (coordinated by Itabia President Vito Pignatelli and the coordinator of research on biomass and bioenergy for the National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development, Enea); 2) Science: research, development and statistical surveys (coordinator Luigi Pari, Council for Research in Agricultural, CRA, researcher); 3) Governance: legislative and regulatory simplification (coordinator Sofia Mannelli, president of Chimica Verde Bionet).

Cooperation among the work groups made it possible to collect all the information of use for creating a complete framework of the state of the art and the possible scenarios for development. This information was reorganized and synchronized in a specific report which has become the basis for reference used for drafting a Plan for the Biomass Sector to which Itabia provided a valid contribution. Two years after the start of these activities the plan was finally given definitive approval on August 5th 2014 during a meeting of the Permanent Conference on relations between the state, regions and the autonomous regions and provinces of Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol and Bolzano. Following the accord, the undersecretary with the agroenergy mandate, Giuseppe Castiglione, declared, “The plan will become an instruments for the regions which must make use of the instructions for the development of agroenergy in the territories they are responsible for.”

The plan, in fact, widely shared by the regional administrations, is also important in connection with the need to specify work and goals prescribed in the 2014-2020 Rural Development Programs.

The plan thus establishes the pivotal position of the primary sector and the ministry and its representatives for consistent and harmonized leadership for the development of bioenergy with explicit reference to the guidelines set up by the National Energy Strategy (NES) and integrating this strategy with specific work in the agroenergy field as well as for providing a model to be used for addressing organic development plans for other countries with an eye on technical, scientific and economic cooperation.