How to reduce emissions and address the effects of climate change without losing competitiveness? This is the question at the center of the fifth edition of the Venice Conference on Global Governance of Climate Change and Sustainability, presented in Milan and scheduled from 15 to 17 October on the island of San Servolo, in Venice. Created by Vision Think Tank, with Axa Italia as founding partner, the initiative will bring together over one hundred speakers including representatives of institutions, scientists, entrepreneurs and journalists.
Looking for possible solutions
The chosen theme, "Beyond Cop", expresses the intention to support international negotiations with proposals that can be developed by businesses, cities and local communities. From energy security to damage prevention, the discussion will try to identify the conditions for investments in sustainability to produce economic benefits and improve the ability of territories to deal with extreme events.
“The debate on the climate has progressively polarized between catastrophism and the temptation to slow down the transition because it is considered too expensive,” observes Francesco Grillo, director of Vision Think Tank, academic fellow at Bocconi University and visiting fellow at the European University Institute. “With the Venice Conference 2026, Beyond COP, we want to explore a third way, starting from a different question: what if sustainability were a competitive advantage?”.
Energy and development, the minister's point
The availability of energy and the path towards reducing emissions are among the issues mentioned by the Minister of the Environment and Energy Security Gilberto Pichetto Fratin, who spoke with institutional greetings at the presentation.
“I agree with the constructive approach of the initiative promoted by AXA and Vision, which interprets the challenge of sustainability as a lever to trigger new development and safeguard the competitiveness of our country's businesses,” states the minister. “Energy, adaptation, climate finance, are the issues that Italy is addressing in order to build a development model that will also allow us to have all the energy necessary for the coming decades, aiming for carbon neutrality by 2050”.
The program will also dedicate space to the role of the European Union and the relationship with other major economic areas, from China to India to South America. The discussion on policies will be supported by interdisciplinary working groups, with doctoral students and academic tutors, working on insurance, artificial intelligence, materials, energy, agri-food and global governance of climate change.
Insurance companies focus on prevention
For the insurance sector, climate change raises issues regarding risk assessment, coverage availability and damage prevention.
"The effects of climate change are in fact now evident in our communities, territories and economies. As insurers we have a key role to play, which goes beyond protection", underlines Chiara Soldano, CEO of the Axa Italia group.
The manager recalls the commitment to putting prevention at the center of the offer, envisaged in the new "Growing forward" strategic plan. Axa Italia supports the initiative for the fifth consecutive year: in the comparison between research, businesses, institutions and young people, explains Soldano, the objective is to identify solutions through different skills and perspectives.
From the Tiber to the waste of Milan
During the presentation, some students anticipated three proposals to bring to Cop31. The first concerns the Loss & Damage Fund, for which a model is suggested that strengthens the prevention and management of climate risk, overcoming an approach focused mainly on interventions following disasters.
The second, TiberConnect, aims to transform the Tiber into a sustainable urban mobility corridor, integrated with Rome's public transport. The third concerns waste management in the Milan metropolitan area: the project proposes to evaluate whether advanced selection technologies can increase the recovery of recyclable materials from residual waste at economically sustainable costs.
These are proposals that will need to be explored further during the work. On 17 October, at the end of the conference, the signing of the Venice Manifesto is expected, in which the solutions developed during the three days will converge.
