Todde’s fairy tales about the energy transition

 “Enough of these fairy tales about Sardinia,” says Alessandra Todde. And it is a worthy intention, which she herself, unfortunately, fails to uphold. The president of the Sardinia region is referring to Giorgia Meloni’s speech in Parliament, specifically the passage in which the Prime Minister said: “We have opposition parties accusing us of not doing enough on renewables, and then when we try to do more on renewables and they govern certain regions, they block our ability to do so.” Meloni does not mention Sardinia, but Todde feels she is being singled out. “Between installed capacity and authorisations, we have already met the targets set for mid-2027 under the burden-sharing scheme: the 6.2 GW allocated to us,” says the M5S president, making a false claim. 

“Sardinia is not blocking renewables” is the message Todde is putting out, oblivious to reality. It is crystal clear that the island is hindering the roll-out of renewable energy sources in every possible way, and is even becoming a political problem for the broad coalition. And it is entirely unnecessary to cite the Prime Minister or the centre-right parties as sources.

Both Elly Schlein and Angelo Bonelli have openly criticised Sardinia’s political line as a negative model for the centre-left: the leaders of two parties, the PD and AVS, which are, incidentally, part of the Todde administration. But Beppe Grillo himself, founder and former ‘guardian’ of the M5S’s values, has mocked the Todde administration’s energy policy on his blog: “At last, a bit of truth about this half-baked environmentalism: enough with wind, sun and solar power! We need coal! We’ve finally realised that we need coal, even slightly sulphurous coal like that from Sulcis. We must bring about a great revolution in Sardinia!” Grillo also published another article on his blog by former M5S MP Marco Bella, entitled “The broad coalition is wrong about renewables, especially in Sardinia”, whose underlying message is similar to Meloni’s but more explicit: “If you say no to the nuclear delusion, you can’t then block renewables, because you’ll just look like a bunch of charlatans”.

In a letter sent to the leaders of Campo Largo, 120 activists and researchers openly opposed to the government and in favour of the centre-left write that Sardinia is at the centre of a “crusade against renewables and against the Meloni government, which, according to the regional government’s incredible stance, is guilty of proposing far too many of them. The Todde administration – the environmentalists write – despite warnings and rejections from the Constitutional Court and the Council of State, continues to promote an ideological vision that demonises clean energy operators, labelling them ‘speculators’, whilst persisting in claiming it wishes to achieve climate targets without large-scale industrial plants: a completely unrealistic proposition that comes across as a genuine mockery”.

But regardless of opinions, there are the facts. Contrary to what President Todde says, her region has literally blocked renewables by introducing an 18-month moratorium on the installation of new plants across the whole of Sardinia through a law that was subsequently struck down by the Constitutional Court. The region then, through another measure, declared 99 per cent of the territory unsuitable for the construction of renewable energy plants, and this law too was struck down by the Constitutional Court. Finally, the Constitutional Court also struck down the ‘mini-moratorium’ which suspended authorisations already submitted and prohibited the submission of new applications for the installation of plants in areas not included amongst those deemed suitable. Three laws aimed at ‘blocking’ renewables and three rulings which, following an appeal by the Meloni government, deemed them unconstitutional.

This policy of obstructionism, whilst condemned by the Constitutional Court, has nevertheless had an impact. It is hard to believe that Todde would claim that her region has ‘already achieved the targets set for mid-2027 under the burden-sharing scheme’ set out in the Pniec. Because the official figures, reported by Terna, tell the exact opposite story. Sardinia is the worst-performing region in Italy, with a shortfall of 649 MW against its target as of August 2026. And this shortfall has widened enormously under Todde’s leadership: it stood at 168 MW in October 2024 and has almost quadrupled in less than two years.

Not only is it untrue that Sardinia has ‘already achieved’ the targets set by the Pniec, but it is practically impossible for it to do so. According to Legambiente’s ‘Italia rinnovabile’ report – which is not exactly the think tank of Fratelli d’Italia – Sardinia is ‘20 years behind in meeting the burden-sharing target, namely the additional 6.2 GW that the “Aree idonee” decree assigns to the region as its 2030 target’. This is precisely the target that Todde claims to have ‘already achieved’. Sardinia has so far installed 1.3 GW since 2021 and still has 4.9 GW to go; however, at this rate of new installations, the target will be reached in 2050 rather than 2030. “This is due to Law 20, which currently effectively prevents the installation of industrial-scale plants on the island,” writes Legambiente.