Outcome of COP 25 shows long way ahead - Mattarella

(ANSA) - Rome, December 16 - Italian President Sergio Mattarella on Monday said the outcome of UN climate change conference COP25 is an example of how distant "awareness on the need to save the planet is".
    Speaking at a ceremony with the diplomatic corps ahead of the Christmas holidays, Mattarella said that "the centrality of the issue of a well-balanced and sustainable ecological transition is an unavoidable fact in international relations".
    The European Union, the president also said, "needs to make a qualitative leap that the conference on the future of Europe will need to favor, to complement with the Atlantic Alliance that for the past 70 years has guaranteed peace and freedom and which we would always like to be a tool of solidarity.
    "There is widespread awareness regarding the need to defend the environment", the president continued, also thanks to a "lively and extensive youth movement".
    Increasing awareness on climate change "now needs to be translated into convinced and concrete" actions, the president said. Mattarella went on to warn against weakened multilateralism.
    "The weakening of multilateralism and parallel development of widespread tensions must raise alarm", he said at the ceremony.
    "Recent developments in the Mediterranean strengthen concern.
    "The return of military competition represents for the entire international community a sign of historic regression" that is full of risks, the president said.