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Reducing taxes on labour by making polluting emissions pay, in order to tackle climate change. This is the aim of the Stop Global Warming campaign, launched on 22 April, on the occasion of Earth Day, to give concrete form to what scientists and economists have been saying for some time.

Namely, that the most effective way to curb global warming (and attempt to limit the increase in average global temperature to 1.5 degrees by the end of the century, relative to pre-industrial levels) is to put a price on the emissions of its main driver: CO2. This thesis is also supported by a manifesto signed by 27 Nobel laureates and other experts, which demonstrates how the mechanism would also accelerate technological innovation in the service of the energy transition.

More than a petition

"For many years economists have argued for the importance of using taxes to discourage CO2 emissions, shifting them from labour to the consumption of environmental resources. A very simple and straightforward principle, one that it would seem hard to disagree with," explains Marco Cappato, former Member of the European Parliament and political coordinator of the initiative, launched together with experts such as Alberto Majocchi (emeritus professor of Public Finance at the University of Pavia) and Monica Frassoni (co-president of the European Green Party).

Long committed to many civil rights battles with the Associazione Luca Coscioni, Cappato is also the founder of Eumans!, a movement of active citizens for sustainable development, with which he gave life to this petition. "It is actually more than a petition," he explains. It is in fact an ECI (European Citizens' Initiative), a participatory democracy tool that allows the carbon tax proposal to be submitted to the European Commission, so as to establish a common minimum price for emissions, discouraging the consumption of fossil fuels and encouraging energy saving and the use of renewable sources.

Goal: one million signatures

To be brought before the European Parliament, the petition will need to collect at least one million signatures. An important milestone "because – Cappato explains – only in this way will Europe have the formal and institutional obligation to provide a response on the matter. In political terms, the larger the committee, the greater our ability to influence decisions."

To date, Stop Global Warming has 38,000 signatures and the deadline for reaching the target has been moved from 22 July to 22 January 2021. "The project had begun before the pandemic and we had planned launch events around Europe," Cappato explains. "Then the virus slowed everything down and the campaign was conducted solely via the internet and social media. The physical dimension was therefore missing. In these months, however, we have sown a great deal, and September will be a crucial month for understanding how the mobilisation will unfold."

"More ambition is needed on carbon pricing in Europe"

It should be said that the issue of carbon pricing (the attribution of a cost to CO2 emissions, as a deterrent) is already on the agenda in Europe and that, starting from this coming autumn, the European Commission will be working on a number of related measures. Summits have also been held in recent weeks to assess an expansion of the ETS system (Emissions Trading System, through which "rights to pollute" can be traded on the market) to other industrial sectors. This is a landscape well known to the campaign's promoters: "In our view, the issue is not yet being discussed in sufficiently ambitious terms to address the gravity of the situation. That is why it is important, yes, to reach one million signatures by January, but also to bring our proposals immediately into the official meetings of ministers that will take place in the coming weeks."

Towards this goal, the support of institutional representatives who have already signed the ECI can make a contribution. "The fact that we have with us mayors of important cities, such as Palermo and Dublin, or former European commissioners and parliamentarians, makes us think that September will be the decisive month for reaching an informed public opinion and that, even before January, we will be able to put pressure on the European Union to introduce this mechanism."

The carbon credit system is "good but not sufficient"

Since 2005, the European Union has introduced the ETS market, a European system for trading emission allowances, in implementation of the Kyoto Protocol, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in energy-intensive sectors. The mechanism, in brief, provides for the allocation of "emission rights" among states and companies, which must jointly commit to not polluting beyond a certain maximum cap. Those who exceed it are forced to purchase credits from other parties who, having been more virtuous, have produced fewer emissions and can therefore sell their surpluses. This is the largest international emissions trading scheme in the world in terms of market value, yet it has not delivered the hoped-for results.

"Although it was a positive move, the data show that it has not been sufficient," Cappato explains. "In the current credit system there are two major limitations: the price for emissions is too low to incentivise entrepreneurs to invest in the energy transition and, secondly, it applies only to certain sectors of large industrial production, leaving out many others, including transport. Furthermore, the credit system is subject to fluctuations, whereas what is needed is a certain minimum price that rises over the years in an equally certain manner, so that economic operators can already today plan their investments for the coming years and gradually abandon the most climate-impacting processes. With our proposal we have set 50 euros per tonne, to gradually reach 100 euros."

The campaign's celebrity ambassadors

To reach people in a more direct way, Cappato has called on well-known faces and pop stars, such as Fedez, Nina Zilli, Mara Maionchi, Neri Marcorè, Giulia Innocenzi, Cristiana Capotondi, Gabriele Muccino, Arisa, Pif and Pierluigi Pardo.

"We started by involving popular figures straight away, precisely because we wanted to avoid remaining confined within the circle of experts. The experts have spoken very clearly and there is a great deal of consensus within the scientific community. What is lacking is not even popular mobilisation, but the precision of a political objective." An objective that this European citizens' initiative sets out to define.

Nina Zilli, "We need to change the way we think"

"Our planet has been suffering for some time, and the coronavirus is proof that we sometimes push things too far," explains Nina Zilli, who due to the restrictions imposed by the epidemic was forced this summer to postpone the tour celebrating her ten years of career, replacing it – for now – with the Mini Zilli Tour, a more intimate show set in evocative locations across the Belpaese.

"We need to change the way we think," says the singer, who feels it is her duty to use her voice to amplify the message. "I am a child of the Eighties, which launched the most superficial consumerism, which led us to think that wasteful behaviour was actually practical. Above all, we need to change this, and the Stop Global Warming initiative goes in that direction."

A concrete gesture at a time when we are "increasingly caught up in individualism and losing that empathy which should be the foundation of society."

The Piacenza-born singer's sensitivity towards environmental issues has also emerged recently through her music. It was on 5 June that a fortunate coincidence saw her new single Schiacciacuore released on World Environment Day. The title describes the way we are treating the Earth, "crushing its ecosystem," while its lyrics tell the story of the duality between humankind and nature, a theme also transposed visually in the music video. "I transformed myself into a Mother Nature 'in a tracksuit' — relaxed. While Nitro, who is a brilliant rapper and performs the track with me, represents man. It's Catullus's Odi et amo, which we interpreted by placing beautiful butterflies in a landfill and letting soap bubbles rise from factory chimneys."

And so, without having planned it, the song, "written during lockdown and born as always from an unconscious flow," became for the singer "the symbol of this period and, at the same time, of the climate emergency." An epiphany that also revealed itself through a drawing in which Nina Zilli depicted a "Mother Nature holding her heart in her hands."

Now, to give concrete form to this newfound awareness, the singer, like other faces from the world of showbiz, has stepped up by supporting Stop Global Warming and inviting all her fans to do the same.