Active(ist) Participation

Climate States General

14/02/2025

Networking with Ci sarà un bel clima

It was 2018 when Greta Thunberg started her Stockholm School Climate Strike (‘Skolstrejk för klimatet’ in Swedish) at the age of 15. Since then, Thunberg has been able to raise the visibility and public awareness of climate change, becoming a point of reference for the younger generation – but not only – fighting for a more sustainable future.

Thanks in part to her figure, climate and environmental activism groups have strengthened and expanded, springing up and growing all over the world. This wave has also occurred in Italy, with numerous environmental groups at national, regional and local levels.

An example of this is Ci Sarà Un Bel Clima, a collective of activists from very different backgrounds born in 2020 that aims for efficient and appropriate communication when it comes to climate, environmental crisis and ecological transition. Its motto, ‘networking against climate collapse’, brings out a fundamental aspect of its work, namely to create cohesion among people in order to achieve ‘real environmental justice’. In the collective’s manifesto, one can also read how ‘unity, dialogue and the commitment of people and communities will enable us to successfully respond to the social and environmental crisis in our country’, and how each person – whether part of the citizenry, science, journalism, politics or business – can do their part to improve the current situation we find ourselves in.

Photo 1: Ci Sarà Un Bel Clima. Source: unbelclima.it

In order to ‘gather, strengthen and support the voices of Italian climate action’, the collective founded, together with other associations and activists at the national level, the States General of Climate Action. This project was based on the Citizens’ Assemblies, a form of participatory democracy also applied by Extinction Rebellion in which the people who take part in them carry out a process of training, dialogue and exchange to be able to consciously decide what action to take for the future – in this case with a focus on the environmental crisis.

This path of democracy has three practical objectives. The first is to define the guidelines for environmental activism in Italy, providing cohesion and synergy between movements in the area. The second is to create a network for climate action, in order to make the environmental movement united and connected. Finally, the third objective is to draw up a document indicating how to implement the ecological transition, offering a possible basis for addressing these issues in the public debate.

The importance given to the sharing of ideas is central: according to the states, for radical, true and lasting change it is necessary for the decision-makers – i.e. the citizenry (especially voters) and politicians – to fully understand the seriousness of the environmental crisis we find ourselves in. This understanding, however, must pass through efficient communication and adequate information of clear and real common objectives, avoiding confusing the population with partial data or ambiguous messages.

Photo 2: working organisation. Source: unbelclima.it

The States General of Climate Action: the results

The first phase of meetings, in which both training and discussion began, took place in Val d’Ossola in September 2023. During this first phase, 10 key points for the ecological transition in Italy were emphasised:

Policy making and institutional policy
Energies
Social justice
Natural resources and territory
Organising action
Economic models
Communication and dissemination
Agri-food system
Mobility
Education and training

Given the breadth of the topics covered, it was decided to focus on a few of them (the underlined topics in the list). Working groups dedicated to each theme (or ‘table’) were thus created, which received targeted training. The training was a necessary step in order not only to be able to better discuss the topic but also to be able to arrive at concrete proposals. The other topics that did not make it onto the tables at the final assembly were nevertheless dealt with in various working groups, thanks also to reference figures for each topic.

The final assembly took place in Cesena in May 2024, where the reflections and proposals of the working groups developed over eight months of collective work were presented.

The floor to the States General

To fully understand the functioning and climate of the States General, we decided to interview Giovanni Montagnani, one of the founders of the association. When we asked him what the States General are for him, Montagnani defined this initiative as ‘a process in which anyone can participate, aimed at dialogue and active participation between people who want to build a thought and action – also political – on the climate cause’.

In addition to the division into groups and the collection of proposals, Montagnani went on to point out another step taken during the meetings, namely the red dot mechanism. ‘When all the proposals emerged,’ Montagnani continued, ’the participants were not only able to choose which ones were the most interesting – and from hundreds of different proposals, thirty-six emerged – but some interested people could mark with a red sticker the ideas that they considered absolutely unacceptable, understood as deleterious to the community. After a number of votes and debates on the various topics, the guidelines to be adopted were defined, and the development of the topics was entrusted to people who would act as spokespersons so that, as Montagnani put it, ‘the topic would be kept active’.

When we asked Montagnani about the difficulties of this project, he replied: ‘The best thing is to be able to use the various working tables as a litmus test of the different opinions that can exist within various groups. According to Montagnani, in fact, having debates between people who may not see issues in the same way – wind turbines in a tourist area and nuclear energy to name but a few examples – creates situations in which the debate, in order to become constructive, must go through a phase of listening, openness and dialogue: only in this way can the many facets of the issues discussed be fully understood, and solutions found together – as far as possible.

Another difficulty encountered during the course of the States General was ‘keeping people engaged in a project that, apart from national events, does not distribute economic resources’. In fact, Montagnani emphasises that the States General is an initiative – or a political project – that requires an ongoing commitment, both in terms of the confrontation part and the operational part.

When we finally asked about the hopes for the future of the Stati Generali Montagnani, in addition to the wish for greater collective participation, pointed out that a fundamental building block to make this project even more active and impactful is ‘to gain strength through the involvement of local administrations’. Local governments are in fact the first step to a bigger echo and to making even more people understand the importance of collective action when it comes to the climate and environmental crisis. The local scale can then be the springboard for initiatives, projects and actions that extend to a regional or national level, uniting various realities scattered across the peninsula but united by a common goal: a more sustainable, fairer, more liveable world.

While we are waiting for the final report of the assembly, we suggest you delve into this reality with the interview we did with Clara Pogliani, activist of Ci Sarà Un Bel Clima: Gli Stati Generali del Clima in Italia – Intervista all’attivista Clara Pogliani

If you would like more information on this reality and on the States General of Climate Action, please contact info@unbelclima.it

Matilde Spagnolo

Graduated in Environmental Humanities (Unive) and Natural Sciences (Unipd). Passionate about ethology, she works as an environmental educator and joined Atmosphera Lab as Social Media and writer in 2022.