Genova. “Despite the usual right, which has been stunned by subtracting themselves as usual to the legitimate requests of those who live in the neighborhoods near industrial plants and port fumes, yesterday in the city council they won the citizens: our motion was approved for the right to breathe clean air. It is a clear signal: Genoa can no longer afford to postpone the challenge of environmental protection and the right of everyone to life worthy of a civil society”. Thus, the group leader of the M5S in the city council Marco Mesmaeker, first signatory of the motion, in the aftermath of the session which ended with the approval of the act.
“Our motion involves the Municipality and all the institutions to work seriously and concretely against air pollution. What matters here is the air we breathe! We are not interested in looking back and complaining about what others have not done: let’s focus on what we need to do, immediately, without wasting time, for the health of the Genoese. Our motion goes in this direction”.
The approved document identifies three fundamental axes: air quality as a programming criterion, because every urban and infrastructure choice will have to respect European standards and WHO guidelines; The electrification of port platforms, with the need to accelerate the works so that, by 2026, ships can connect to the electricity grid and turn off the engines drastically reducing emissions; Transparent monitoring in the most exposed neighborhoods such as Cornigliano, who for years has no longer been subject to periodic checks despite the proximity to industrial plants, and San Teodoro, under siege from port fumes, where citizens have even had to self -financing to know the data on the air quality they breathe.
“Citizens no longer have to be forced to arrange themselves. It is the task of the institutions to guarantee adequate transparency and tools. We therefore reiterate what has been declared last Friday at the assembly that was held in San Teodoro: there is no economic development without the health of people. For this reason, also thanks to the support of the Environment and Health Observatory, reactivated after years of abandonment, our council group will supervise that the commitments made to become a real realization. vote, we do not satisfy ourselves.
