Sicily is one of Europe’s regions most impacted by global warming. From droughts that devastate local agriculture to punishing heatwaves and more, Euronews travelled around the Italian island to witness first hand what it is like to live on the frontlines of the climate crisis.
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00:00climate is impacting the life of Sicily very strongly. I'm here since 1996. I never saw
00:20a period like this. There are some people that deny climate changes. I think we cannot
00:26deny this anymore. This dry landscape might soon become a familiar sight across Sicily.
00:36This island is already facing the severe impacts of global warming with droughts, wildfires,
00:41flash floods, and record-breaking temperatures. I'm here to meet those directly affected and
00:46witness firsthand what it's like to live on the front lines of the climate crisis.
00:57It's late morning on the plain of Catania, the agricultural powerhouse of eastern Sicily
01:02renowned for its rich volcanic soil at the foot of Mount Etna. These workers are tending
01:07to citrus groves on a 200-hectare farm that has been in Gerardo's family for six generations.
01:15Here as you can see, we are cutting branches because we want this fruit to become bigger.
01:20So we cut the branches that have a lot of wood in order that we won't lose energy and
01:27water on the wood, but all the water will go on the plants. This is very useful to have
01:33a big and good quality of red Sicilian PGI oranges.
01:41But Gerardo is worried. During the last harvest, his oranges were so small that they sold
01:46for only a quarter of the usual price. Some of his other crops, like wheat and beans,
01:51have been completely decimated, the cause of persistent drought that has plagued Sicily
01:56for over two years.
01:59This is just survival. Unfortunately, with this long summer, we are also scared of the
02:06possibility of the plants to die. Although we are trying to give them all the water support
02:12they need, thanks to some lakes that we were able to fill during the winter, we are pumping
02:18a lot of water from down, from the earth, but the electricity is very expensive and
02:24we don't know how much water still we have under the soil.
02:29Sicily, home to five million people, is the largest island of the Mediterranean, a region
02:35that is warming 20 percent faster than the global average. As a result, Sicily has already
02:41reached the 1.5 degree increase in temperature since the pre-industrial era, the limit considered
02:46crucial to mitigate extreme weather events. In the summer of 2021, the thermometer here
02:52reached the highest level ever recorded in Europe, with 48.8 degrees Celsius. For this
02:58professor, the absence of rainfall further underscores the climate's disruption.
03:04In this map, we compare rainfall in the last year with rainfall in the previous 20 years.
03:13And as you can see, in some areas of Sicily, especially this one, which is the area of
03:17eastern Sicily, here we are in the Catania area, rainfall has been reduced by up to 60-70 percent.
03:24The events of drought are part of Sicily's climate history. However, in the last 50 years
03:30we have never seen such a high deficit as we are seeing in this last year.
03:39But there are also infrastructural problems, which are also connected to the inadequacy
03:45of water networks, because we have very large water losses, both in the irrigation sector
03:52and in the drinking sector. That is, most of the water that is put into the pipes is lost,
03:59because the networks are old, the networks have not been modernized. But also because
04:03in some cases we have impermeabilized the soil. We have built, by building infrastructure,
04:09roads, houses that have reduced the soil's ability to absorb water.
04:16To prevent further losses this year, Sicilian authorities have imposed water restrictions
04:20on one million people across nearly 100 municipalities. In the southern city of Gela, residents can
04:27only access water every three days. This situation has created a logistical nightmare
04:32for this couple and their six-year-old daughter, Alice. She suffers from a sleep-related breathing
04:37disorder that requires the constant maintenance of several machines.
04:44With Alice's situation, I always have to keep everything clean, sanitized.
04:49Also all her machines, which require daily cleaning. The disadvantages are quite big,
04:59because maybe you can't waste water, you have to try to save it.
05:07All of us, the inhabitants, have tanks. We are a bit limited, because even the simple
05:16thing of going to the beach in the summer, on a hot day, you can't do it, because you have
05:21to get home anyway, you have to take a shower, and with the sand it requires a lot of water.
05:28So many times we don't do it. Speaking also with the residents of our neighborhood,
05:35we are all desperate, because this situation is really frustrating and stressful.
05:46In May, thousands of citizens and farmers voiced their concerns in Palermo, the island's capital.
05:51After declaring a state of emergency for Sicily, the Italian government allocated 20 million
05:57euros to combat the drought. But many considered this to be insufficient, including protesters
06:04like Moreale Salvatore, a farmer with around 200 cows and several hectares of wheat.
06:10When I was going to school, they were already talking about the certification of Sicily,
06:15so it's not something that was born today or yesterday. So politics has its responsibility,
06:21because it could have thought about it a little earlier, to face these problems.
06:26The biggest damage is the lack of wheat harvest, 95% less wheat harvest.
06:33But the most serious thing is the lack of water. As you have seen, we have had a lake
06:40since the 90s, it was a large lake, but now it is almost empty.
06:48Let's say that if it doesn't rain as soon as possible, and there are rains that can
06:55solve this problem, we are forced to send the animals to the slaughterhouse, because
07:02we no longer have water to drink, and then we don't even know what to do with the land,
07:09because if it doesn't rain, you don't want to risk losing your land.
07:15Sicily is far from the only place impacted by the climate crisis. In the past month alone,
07:21flash floods have devastated parts of northern Italy and China, wildfires erupted in California,
07:27and heatwaves claimed hundreds of lives in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Greece.
07:33Environmental activists warn that these events are likely to result in the destruction of
07:40of what may lie ahead for the rest of Europe.
07:47It's been years since we talked about climate change, it's been years since we told the
07:54governments to do something about climate change, and now to see that what we had foreseen
08:02is happening, and that there was not an adequate response, is clearly a frustration for us.
08:09It is a phenomenon that is right to be studied now, precisely to deal with what will be the
08:20water emergency that will also occur in the rest of Italy and Europe.
08:27If today we move well in Sicily, there is hope that we will move well in the rest of the planet.
08:34If instead we don't move well in Sicily, we continue to waste time, as has happened so far,
08:40clearly the hopes of our planet become very limited.
08:47I meet again with Gerardo. Every morning he gazes over his farm, desperately hoping for rain,
08:53wondering whether this land will remain suitable for cultivation.
08:58What we always say as farmers is basically we say that the land is not ours, but we have it,
09:03land from our children. So no matter if this farm will still be of the family, or if we will give it
09:12to someone else, we'll sell it. But what's important is to give a future to this farm and to this land.
09:19With this climate changing, this is becoming extremely complicated to think about the future.
09:26In the face of Sicily's persistent drought, solutions like wastewater recycling and modern irrigation systems
09:32could provide some relief. But implementing them will take several years, time that Sicily can simply not afford.
09:39If current trends continue, one third of the territory could turn into a desert by 2030,
09:45and by 2050, two thirds of Sicily may suffer the same fates.