Bridging Research and Policy in the Context of National and European Targets: Decarbonization of the Italian Energy System

This paper critically reviews Italy's energy decarbonization efforts, analysing both EU and Italian policies and the relevant academic literature. It examines the policy- and research-driven aspects of the transition, focusing on their mutual alignment. The analysis highlights four main findings: 1) the EU and Italian medium and long-term targets are periodically updated and kept the same, only becoming more stringent without facing specific vertical criticalities; 2) the technical implementation limitations are overlooked, showing the tendency of EU and Italian policies to focus only on providing insights rather than tangibly supporting the implementation phase; 3) the results of the scientific literature show a strong coherence, presenting the possible elements for decarbonization, without providing real impactful results; 4) the literature studies support medium and long-term strategies with technical insights.