(ANSA) - ROME, NOV 13 - Italy wants to continue "to do its own part" to tackle climate change but a pragmatic approach is necessary to protect the environment, Premier Giorgia Meloni said on Wednesday in her address at the COP29 summit in Baku, Azerbaijan.
    "We need a balanced energy mix to favour the transition process.
    "We need to use all available technologies", the premier said.
    The prime minister stressed that "ambitious goals" were outlined at the COP28 climate conference in Dubai in January, and "reaching these goals requires everyone's cooperation, starting with the major emitters of greenhouse gases and adequate financial support.
    "Working for a valuable compromise requires sharing responsibilities and overcoming divisions between developed countries and emerging and developing economies", said the premier.
    Meloni recalled that Italy is already earmarking for Africa most of the over four-billion-euro budget of its climate fund and will continue to support initiatives like the Green Climate Fund and the Loss and Damage Fund.
    However, stressed the prime minister, it is a priority for decarbonization to take into account the sustainability of "our production and social systems".
    "We must protect nature with men at its core, an approach that is too ideological and not pragmatic risks to take us off the road to success", she said in her speech.
    Meloni said that, at the moment, there is no alternative to fossil fuels, but "we need to have a realistic vision", calling for a balanced transition process.
    "We need to use all available energies, not just renewables", noted the premier, including "bio fuels and nuclear fusion" which "could produce clean, safe and limitless energy".
    Italy, continued the premier, is "at the forefront on nuclear fusion and in the framework of our G7 presidency we organized the first meeting of the World Fusion Energy Group sponsored by the International Atomic Energy Agency, we intend to relaunch this technology, which could be a game changer as it can turn energy from a geopolitical weapon into a widely accessible resource".
    "Let's work for a new energy diplomacy to multiply opportunities for cooperation between the global North and global South", said the premier.
    The opposition 5-Star Movement (M5S) said that Meloni's speech at the COP29 conference in Baku was written by the fossil-fuel lobby.
    "Premier Meloni repeated the tired narrative put forward by the gas and oil lobbies at the COP in Baku for the umpteenth time, proposing solutions whose sole purpose is to allow them to continue making profits at the expense of citizens," said M5S MP and former environment minister Sergio Costa.
    "She says that the solution to the climate crisis that exists today is nuclear fusion, which does not exist yet.
    "She tells this to Italians who risk losing everything every time it rains".
    Italian critics of Green policies often accuse environmentalists of adopting an "ideological" approach.
    But Costa said Meloni's stance was the "ideological" one. "It is surprising how ideological this approach, not ideological environmentalism, is," he said.
    "They deny scientific evidence, they do not care about the data that exists and they entrench themselves in unsustainable but convenient positions for their partisan interests.
    "Climate denial is a dangerous ideology that is out of touch with reality and risks dragging us into disaster to serve the interests of the usual suspects".
    Angelo Bonelli, an MP for the Green-Left Alliance (AVS), echoed those sentiments.
    "Premier Meloni's approach to the ecological transition is ideological," Bonelli said.
    "In Baku she gave her support to the fossil industry, breaching the commitments made by the Italian government at COP28 in Dubai.
    "The climate crisis is causing massive damage not only to people and nature, but also to our economy.
    "Between floods and extreme weather events, such as drought, in a year and a half we have exceeded 20 billion euros in damages, costs that are paid by Italian citizens".
    The centre-left Democratic Party (PD) said Meloni had been "consistent" in her speech with "nationalist" moves to destroy the climate. (ANSA).