“Not in my backyard” is the rallying cry of residents everywhere who oppose proposed projects for their neighborhoods. Whether it’s affordable housing, a landfill, or a new data center, they may see the benefit of the job. They just don’t want to be around them. And the roots of that resistance vary from place to place. When it comes to the ongoing transition from fossil fuels to renewables, companies and policy makers need to know where, exactly, people come from.
The Italian island of Sardinia is a textbook example. As IEEE SpectrumEnergy and energy organizer Emily Waltz found out last October that opposition to Sardinian wind and solar projects is deepening. It prompted a quarter of voters to line up in public spaces by 2024 to sign a petition banning all renewable energy development.
Waltz was surprised. He went there to see a promising new grid-scale energy storage system using greenhouses. While reporting on that project, he interviewed residents, engineers, activists, and professors about their attitudes toward climate change and the Italian government’s positive plans for renewable energy on the island. And Waltz quickly learned of the Sardinians’ deep antipathy toward renewable energy and its deep ties to a 2,700-year history of invasion, occupation, and exploitation.
It started with the Phoenicians and spread to Rome, Byzantium, and Iberia. Sardinia was absorbed into newly united Italy in 1861, and became an autonomous Italian region in 1948. The islanders rightly blame foreigners, including the Italian government. “When you’re in Sardinia, the weight of history—you can feel it in the air,” Waltz told me. “And it’s passed down from one generation to the next.”
Now, Italy needs Sardinia to produce more energy to meet the country’s climate goals—something Sardinians see as Rome’s problem, not theirs. “Sardinia already exports about 30 percent of its electricity. It’s not like they need more,” Waltz said. “So it’s hard to make a case that he builds, builds, builds.”
The result of reporting on Waltz’s old shoe leather is this month’s cover story. He notes that the Sardinians he spoke to are not against climate change, nor are they against renewables per se. They just don’t like the way Italian companies and policy makers try to connect Sardinia as if it is a bigger battery than the home of an ancient and proud people.
“I think Sardinians would be more receptive to renewable projects if it were a grassroots, grassroots approach,” Waltz said. Indeed, this domestic method is already working in some places in Sardinia. He knows of more than 50 projects, called energy communities, where residents deploy renewable energy themselves. The idea also holds promise in other areas struggling to get locals to buy into the renewable energy transition.
What happened in Sardinia is a cautionary tale and a blueprint. Ignore the weight of history carried by communities and your project at risk of failure. Meet people where they are and you might get somewhere. The same lesson applies whether you are in Sulawesi or sub-Saharan Africa. You have to show up to read it.
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