The report

Italia, the 10 2025 climate trends photograph a country that does not accelerate

This is what emerges from the Italy for Climate annual report, which, although growing, sees Italia lagging behind the European average

by Davide Madeddu

23 April 2026

3' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

Key points

53 billion to import fossil fuels
Italy behind Spain and Germany
Growing but below European average
8 barrels per second of oil
You missed a year

3' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

Renewables are slowing down, emissions are not falling and, meanwhile, energy dependence is changing face with the arrival of the US between LNG and oil, creating new risks, not only climatic but also geopolitical. If the country is not standing still, it is certainly not accelerating. This is the picture that emerges from the seventh edition of the 10 key climate trends, the annual report with which Italy for Climate, the study centre of the Sustainable Development Foundation, collects and analyses the main energy and climate data of the year just ended.

53 billion for importing fossil fuels

"In economic terms, 53 billion euro will be spent on importing fossil fuels in 2025 alone," commented Edo Ronchi, president of the Foundation for Sustainable Development. Dependence on LNG has grown by 42% in one year, with the US becoming our third largest energy supplier in twelve months, and supplies from Qatar travelling through an increasingly unstable Strait of Hormuz'.

Italy behind Spain and Germany

Not only that, the report also highlights the competitive picture. 'While Italia was installing 7.2 GW of new renewables, Germany was installing 23 GW, building industrial capacity, supply chains, employment,' adds Ronchi. 'In terms of missed opportunities, we have over 4 GW of pure hydroelectric pumping, giant batteries already built in our mountains, which in 2025 produced a quarter of what they could. The infrastructure exists, it is amortised, it is not dependent on any foreign supplier. Not making full use of it is the purest form of inertia. Standing still in an accelerated transformation phase is not neutrality, it is a choice. And choices have an economic, strategic, and national security price'.

Growing but below EU average

Then there are the extreme increases in growth - in 2025 there were 2,300 - and then other figures that, although growing, are 'distant' from the European average. "Electricity production from renewables as a whole has remained substantially stable," the report emphasises, "and so still in 2025 Italia stands at around 48% of total production, just a step away from overtaking fossil fuels.

8 barrels per second of oil

There is the oil issue: according to the report, 8 barrels per second were consumed for transport in 2025, while "1 per cent

is coal's contribution to electricity demand in 2025, a historic peak that marks the hoped-for end of the most climate-affecting and polluting energy source. Half of the imported coal came from the USA'. The target for electric cars is still a long way off. The share of registrations of these cars was 6.2 per cent, and although they grew by 44 per cent, this is 'a far cry from the EU average of 17 per cent or the 20 per cent of France and Germany'.

You lost a year

For Andrea Barbadella, scientific director of Italy for Climate, another year has been lost. "Greenhouse gas emissions have grown by 0.2 per cent, renewable energy installations have slowed down abruptly after three years of recovery, and energy dependence on fossil fuels has not been reduced," he emphasises. "These last few years have made it clear that without energy security there is no economic security. And the only possible way forward for a country like ours is not to swap the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle of our fossil fuel suppliers, but to progressively eliminate these pieces, focusing on decarbonisation and energy transition as central elements of a national strategy of industrial recovery based on the technologies of the future'.