Italy to put sustainability and climate change in school curriculum

In the first, schools in Italy will have sustainability and climate crisis as a compulsory subject in their curriculum. The UN’s 2030 agenda for sustainable development will be incorporated into as many subjects as possible from September, with one hour a week dedicated to themes including global heating and humans’ influence on the planet. Lorenzo Fioramonti, Italy’s education minister announced that even subjects like geography, mathematics, and physics will be taught from the perspective of sustainability. The minister is a former economics professor who was criticized earlier this year for encouraging students to miss school to take part in climate protests.

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Fioramonti said that the education ministry is being changed to make sustainability and climate the center of the education model. He added that he wished to make the Italian education system the first education system that puts the environment and society at the core of everything learned in school.

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Italy imposes taxes on plastic and sugary drinks

The minister is a known member of the pro-environment Five Star Movement and also the Italian government’s most vocal supporter of green policies. He went to the extent of proposing taxes on airline tickets, plastic, and sugary foods in order to generate funds for education and welfare which was criticised and not accepted. Yet the 2020 Budget of Italy did have a tax on both plastic and sugary drinks. Italian Government has been largely inclined towards greener policies despite initial opposition to his ideas, Fioramonti said.

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Industrialists, ex-deputy PM criticise the taxes

At the same time, it has been surveyed that 80% of Italians back taxing sugar and flights, but industry producers oppose the plastic tax. They argued that the taxes penalise products, not behaviour, and only represents a way to recover resources while placing huge costs on consumers, workers, and businesses. Matteo Salvini, Italy’s climate science-denying former deputy prime minister, whose far-right League voted against almost all key climate proposals in the last parliament has also criticised Fioramonti and the imposed taxes. 

Yet Fioramonti said that he wanted to represent the Italy that stands against all the things that Salvini does.

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