Italy’s Clean Energy Town Asks Why Populists Are Abandoning It

Italy’s Five Star Movement used to rave about towns like Montieri, a village in the verdant Tuscan foothills that burns little coal or natural gas. Instead, the local power plant harnesses steam rising naturally from hot springs deep underground to generate electricity.

Montieri, a village in Tuscany, harnesses steam from hot springs to generate electricity.

Photographer: Alessia Pierdomenico/Bloomberg

Now that the party is in government, it’s singing a different tune on these clean-energy technologies.

While Five Star entered government this year with pledges to shut down pollution-belching power plants and boost renewables, its latest green strategy caps incentives for projects like those in Montieri, known as geothermal energy. That would be a blow to both ...