The 2026 INTO THE BLUE Festival opens a crack in the “energy transition” rhetoric
On a calm afternoon, with a view of the Adriatic sea, the docks and the beaches of Romagna – nesting sites for protected species like the Kentish plover and sea turtles – some choose to talk about chlorine, LNG, and decisions taken for us. Not only a technical discussion, but also an attempt to reconstruct a chain of responsibility that, according to researchers, journalists, and activists, stops exactly when it should be most transparent. The “Male Adriatico. Onde di cloro, dal tubo alla carcassa” (an Adriatic evil – waves of chlorine from pipe to carcass) conference, hosted on June 7 at the Rimini Boat Club on the occasion of the 2026 NTO THE BLUE Festival, revolved around a question: how was it possible to start an LNG terminal in Ravenna [where another terminal previously existed] without a full Environmental Impact Assessment, in the name of energy emergency?
The hypothesis emerging is clear: the so-called energy transition operates in a gray zone, where corporate interests and public responsibility overlap. Two companies, ENI and SNAM, both partly government-owned but de facto independent in their business operations, work in this zone.
A sea of “cost-effectiveness”
The technical fulcrum concerns the operation of the gasifier. As stated by Carlo Franzosini (WWF Miramare Marine Protected Area, Trieste), the terminal’s “open cycle” uses marine water to heat liquid gas, avoiding combustion. Cost savings – about 40 million euros per year – rest on an unpredictable variable: sea temperature. In the same three years of open cycle, there have been increases in turtles hospitalized at the Riccione Turtle Hospital suffering from DTS and an increase in sea foam: three years out of three, states Sauro Pari (President of Fondazione Cetacea ETS). There is still no proof of correlation, but enough to say, “Are we sure it is only a coincidence?”
A private benefit erected upon an externalization of environmental costs: water chlorination, ecosystem alteration, and potentially toxic by-products.
In this context, environmental and economic compensation tones down dissent, causing what many experts define as a real threat: either you accept the infrastructure, or you turn down the promise of work and opportunity for your area.
The monitoring method also raises criticism. Testing is performed only when the terminal runs under its full capacity, thus producing underestimated data on impact, which is consequently used to justify extended operation.
Dark sides and supervision
On an institutional level, there seems to be a lack of democracy. Sauro Pari claims that the water quality data has been rendered classified: “We have not had access to any data”. At the same time, in the words of Antonio Lazzari, an expert in environmental impact assessment, there is an excess of technical documentation causing “information overload”, which reduces transparency and meaning in thousands of pages and files: such a vast amount makes an efficient analysis impossible.
Moreover, there is a structural limit. Inspections and environmental assessment are mostly planned in advance and based on data supplied by the facility managers themselves. Such a predictable mechanism reduces the entire process to a mere technicality in a closed circuit. Whenever there is a severe lack of independence, there is a void in the public role.
This is the basis of the proposal by RECA (climate and environmental emergency network of the Emilia-Romagna region): introducing forms of independent peer review, assigned to external scientific bodies on a rotational basis, in order to remove self-reference from the monitoring process and produce verifiable data. As Lazzari has stated, energy, on a political level, must be acknowledged as a common good to save strategic decision-making from the gray zone of finance and speculation, restoring its status as a matter of collective responsibility.
n Italy, monitoring criteria and priorities are defined by ISPRA (Italian institute for environmental protection and research) and implemented by ARPA (regional environmental protection agency), in a regulated system, on paper, but one that chooses what to make visible and what to leave under the table. This arbitrary method weakens public supervision and opens a crack between official responsibility and de facto presence of institutions, extending on a European level too, where exemptions go hand-in-hand with a lack of transparency.
State in, State out
Elena Gerebizza of Re:Common has spoken of this short-circuit in her speech: “The government is in and out, but, at the end of the day, it is gone”. Lazzari translates this into a brutal question: if the CEO of ENI sits in the same international gas industry circle beside Prime Ministers, even in the most authoritarian nations, then who is really in control?
ENI and SNAM are 30% owned by the Italian government. Thus, the State is both rule-maker and shareholder. This overlap weakens public management and exposes a crucial matter: who really manages public resources, and for whose advantage? The consequence is a fragmentation of projects, assessed in small portions and not for their overall impact… and often approved urgently, with the evident legal criticality.
This mechanism finds expression in the promotion of “green” technology such as CCS, imposed “from above” as the solution to climate change, without any public debate and without a strong, large-scale feedback. The transition rhetoric thus outclasses empirical assessment.
t is in this gap between economic benefit and environmental cost that the tower of so-called energy transition collapses. It is no minor detail that all of the above is occurring in Ravenna, historically a fossil fuel hub and a candidate to become one of the main EU hubs for CO₂ storage (see: Agnes Romagna project), with the ambition to attract foreign cash flow too. Such concentration raises further doubt: rather than reducing risk in our area, why are we increasing it?
The MASE (Italian Ministry for the Environment and Energy Security) certifies the said infrastructure as “natural monopoly”: a category once restricted to primary goods, like water. The transition thus takes on the form of an economic, rather than an environmental, instrument: there is an increase in the distance between those who truly have the environment at heart and those who, in “green” robes, speculate on it. In addition to this, there is a recurring factor mentioned by many of the speakers: the struggle, if not the impossibility, to access documents at a regional, national, and European level. Rather than a “decarbonization”, there appears to be a “green” reconfiguration of profit and authoritarianism. Some of this infrastructure is classified as strategic for the national energy supply. This implies quicker authorization processes and, in certain cases, strengthened safety measures at the facilities: a setup that reduces transparency and public participation.
There are tangible future and present risks for the area: high-pressure infrastructure crossing urban areas (explosion risk), fragile ecosystems subjected to chemical and thermal stress, and visible phenomena such as unusual sea foam, also negatively affecting tourism. “Minimum risk” is all that emerges from the impact assessments, but none outline scenarios in case of accidents.
What we see is a governance whose benefits do not match responsibilities. The economic advantages are immediate and held in a few, private hands (for the first 20 years); the environmental and social risks are widespread, public, and “permanent”. This asymmetry moves the burden completely onto local communities and future generations.
Co-existences: an invitation to keep watch
n this context, the 2026 INTO THE BLUE Festival takes on a meaning that goes beyond culture. The topic of this year’s edition, “Co-existences”, stirs a reflection on the relationship between human beings and the marine environment, with a special focus on biodiversity and protection of the Adriatic ecosystem.
Marta Abbà, an investigative journalist and environmental physicist, has led a strong debate with her investigations on the Adriatic Sea (“Mare nostrum: Croatian and Italian fishermen seeking a sustainable future” and “Adriatic Sea, an unguarded cradle of biodiversity”), in which she reports on the impact of human activity on the coast and the weakness of the marine ecosystem.
The event has proven just how much this balance is compromised today. Among key moments of the festival, we care to underline the Sunday, June 14 (at 9:30 a.m.) conference in Rimini dedicated to the rights of nature, including a proposal to recognize the legal rights of natural elements, overcoming the concept that they are mere resources. An equally important initiative will take place in Bologna on June 13-14: the final event of the Carovana Diritti e Rovesci promoted by RECA and AMAS-ER. The latter is set to analyze various topics: energy as a common good, popular participation tools, and a focus on the four proposals for laws by popular initiative (concerning water, energy, the environment, and urban waste).
Taking part in these events means carrying out a form of civic vigilance. In a time when governance weaknesses, authoritarianism, and rash decisions undermining transparency are on the rise, citizens’ participation and shared consciousness are the most effective tools to reset the balance between collective and private, speculative, or financial interests. The Emilia-Romagna region and the Adriatic, from Ravenna to Riccione, with its weaknesses and richness, have become a living workshop for such a clash. For the same reason, they are, perhaps, the right places where a new collective consciousness may blossom.
Translated by Nicholas Zinzi on behalf of Fondazione Cetacea – Riccione Turtle Hospital
References:
“Male Adriatico” conference: See the live recording, June 7, Rimini – Rete No RIGASS No GNL.
2026 “Into the Blue” Festival – Co.Esistenze: full schedule here (PDF), June 5-14, Rimini/Riccione – Fondazione Cetacea ETS
Carovana “Diritti e Rovesci”: conference schedule here, June 13-14, Bologna – RECA, AMAS-ER
