In welcoming the event, Florence’s headline-making mayor, Matteo Renzi declared that “energy is a key issue for the future of the city.”
Also attending the kick-off of the conference at Florence’s historic Palazzo Vecchio was Antonio Tajani, European Commission Vice-President, who described the festival – now in its fourth year – as “a valuable opportunity to talk about energy in supranational perspective ".
Although known and revered for its influence on western, philosophy, architecture and science, the Tuscan capital is still very much a living laboratory, according to its 36 year old mayor.
“The city is like a bicycle,” he’s said. “You need to keep pedalling or you’ll fall off and go nowhere.”
Increasingly, Renzi, is pedalling in a green direction.
The city recently established pedestrian-only zones as the first of several steps toward making Florence a cleaner, pollution-free community.
In order to further that goal and meet a commitment of creating 20 percent less airborne pollution by 2020, Renzi said the city plans to adopt the Action Plan for Sustainable Energy, something scores of Italian communities have already done.
The Italian plan tracts the European Union plan, launched in 2007, to reduce pollution levels by 20 percent by 2020 in all member states.
Florence must decrease its CO2 level by 2 million tonnes a year to meet this target.
In 2012 the city will begin installing turbines along the Arno river to generate power for city homes.
Provincial officials and researchers at the University of Florence believe installing five mini-hydroelectric systems along the dykes that line the river would annually generate 50,000 gigajoules of energy, reducing the city's carbon footprint by 5,000 tonnes a year.
Other strategies include increasing Florence's network of bicycle lanes, introducing incentives for electric cars, and promoting car-sharing and shared parking.
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