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.
Comments