Abstract
Climate change represents the most important challenge for the international scientific community, for the inherent and irreversible modification brought about in natural ecosystems. International institutions increasingly adopt measures to promote preservation of ecosystems and counteract the social and economical consequences of environmental decline. Here we review the actions undertaken by both the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), aimed to stabilize and reduce concentrations of greenhouse gases (GHG) in atmosphere, including the Kyoto Protocol that obliges developed countries to provide the political and legal framework to meet the Protocol’s expectations. Moreover, it is mandatory for national policies to reduce the occurrence of main risky events, such as landslides, floods, and desertification processes, whose frequency have rapidly risen in the Mediterranean regions mostly susceptible to climatic changes. According to the Kyoto Protocol, each signed party should include, in its annual GHG inventory, information on GHG possibly removed by means of carbon sinks activities such as land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF). Italian laws encompass the National System for the Italian Greenhouse Gas Inventory and the National Registry for Carbon sinks. The latter estimates GHG emissions by sources and accounts for their net removal based on sinks of the LULUCF sector that includes forest land, cropland, grassland, wetlands, and settlements. These compartments in 2008 removed 87.3 Mt of CO2 from atmosphere while, from 1990 to 2008, the total removal as CO2 equivalent increased by 34.8%, CO2 accounting for more than 99% of both total emissions and removals of the sector. Within this frame, carbon sequestration in cultivated soils has become important to add new carbon sinks other than LULUCF. The relation of soil management practices to the increase in soil organic matter is a basic requirement to develop a solid methodology to assess carbon stock changes in soil pool and provide a useful database over the national territory.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
The review report for the Fifth National Communication will be available in: http://unfccc.int/national_reports/annex_i_natcom/idr_reports/items/2711.php
- 3.
A comprehensive description of the methodologies used in compiling the inventory, the data sources, the institutional structures and quality assurance and control procedures.
- 4.
A series of standardized data tables containing mainly numerical information and submitted electronically.
- 5.
The last review report from Italy is available at the UNFCCC web site: http://unfccc.int/national_reports/annex_i_ghg_inventories/inventory_review_reports/items/5687.php
- 6.
On 1st June 2002, Italy ratified the Kyoto Protocol with the law n.120 of 01/06/2002. The ratification law also prescribed the preparation of a National Action Plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, adopted by the Interministerial Committee for Economic Planning (CIPE) on 19th December 2002. The Kyoto Protocol entered into force on 16 February 2005.
- 7.
ISPRA, Istituto Superiore per la Protezione e la Ricerca Ambientale.
- 8.
APAT, Agenzia per la Protezione dell’Ambiente e per i Servizi Tecnici.
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Savy, D., Nebbioso, A., Cóndor, R.D., Vitullo, M. (2012). The Kyoto Protocol and European and Italian Regulations in Agriculture. In: Piccolo, A. (eds) Carbon Sequestration in Agricultural Soils. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-23385-2_2
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