Italy plans to suspend the issuing of 36 pending oil and gas exploration permits, as the government finds upstream oil and gas activity not of strategic importance to the country. At the same time, the ruling populist coalition government, in power since June 2018, is looking to significantly boost the share of renewable energy in Italy’s power mix and total energy consumption, including in the transportation sector. The current government strongly supports Italy’s push to have as much renewable energy in its energy consumption as possible. The previous government also backed the rise of renewables and drafted a strategy to phase out coal-fired electricity by 2025. The new government is keeping the targets of the previous cabinet and has even increased some of the clean energy targets for Italy’s energy consumption and generation, in a bid to cut more carbon emissions in the country. The government has drafted an […]