Global change synergies and trade‐offs between renewable energy and biodiversity

Abstract

Reliance on fossil fuels is causing unprecedented climate change and is accelerating environmental degradation and global biodiversity loss. Together, climate change and biodiversity loss, if not averted urgently, may inflict severe damage on ecosystem processes, functions and services that support the welfare of modern societies. Increasing renewable energy deployment and expanding the current protected area network represent key solutions to these challenges, but conflicts may arise over the use of limited land for energy production as opposed to biodiversity conservation. Here, we compare recently identified core areas for the expansion of the global protected area network with the renewable energy potential available from land-based solar photovoltaic, wind energy and bioenergy (in the form of Miscanthus 9 giganteus). We show that these energy sources have very different biodiversity impacts and net energy contributions. The extent of risks and opportunities deriving from renewable energy development is highly dependent on the type of renewable source harvested, the restrictions imposed on energy harvest and the region considered, with Central America appearing at particularly high potential risk from renewable energy expansion. Without restrictions on power generation due to factors such as production and transport costs, we show that bioenergy production is a major potential threat to biodiversity, while the potential impact of wind and solar appears smaller than that of bioenergy. However, these differences become reduced when energy potential is restricted by external factors including local energy demand. Overall, we found that areas of opportunity for developing solar and wind energy with little harm to biodiversity could exist in several regions of the world, with the magnitude of potential impact being particularly dependent on restrictions imposed by local energy demand. The evidence provided here helps guide sustainable development of renewable energy and contributes to the targeting of global efforts in climate mitigation and biodiversity conservation.

Priority areas for conservation of Old World vultures

“…This map approximates installed and planned national wind energy capacity (REN21 ; Santangeli et al. ) and has been used to evaluate impacts of wind energy expansion on biodiversity (Santangeli et al , , ).…”

“…We used Pogson et al's (2013) map of wind-power potential as a proxy for exposure to collision with wind turbines, a major threat to vultures (Pearce-Higgins & Green 2014; Ogada et al 2016b;Botha et al 2017). This map approximates installed and planned national wind energy capacity (REN21 2017; Santangeli et al 2018) and has been used to evaluate impacts of wind energy expansion on biodiversity (Santangeli et al 2016b(Santangeli et al , 2016c(Santangeli et al , 2018.…”

Global consequences of afforestation and bioenergy cultivation on ecosystem service indicators

“…This has led to substantial concerns that land requirements for bioenergy crops would be competing with conservation areas directly or by leakage. Santangeli et al (2016) found around half of today's global bioenergy production potential to be located either in already protected areas or in land that has highest priority for protection, indicating a high risk for biodiversity in the absence of strong regulatory conservation efforts.…”

Synergies and trade‐offs between renewable energy expansion and biodiversity conservation – a cross‐national multifactor analysis

“…This may result in impacts (e.g. expansion of anthropogenic land uses) that may spill over areas of key importance for biodiversity, such as primary forests in tropical areas (Fargione et al ., ; Wich et al ., ; Santangeli et al ., ). Many such areas have previously been identified as biodiversity hotspots (Myers et al ., ), key sites with species in imminent danger of becoming extinct (Alliance for Zero Extinction sites; http://www.zeroextinction.org) and sites with natural habitats of irreplaceable biodiversity value (Gibson et al ., ).…”

“…We calculated land‐based solar photovoltaic, wind (hereafter solar and wind) and bioenergy unrestricted potential (see Pogson et al ., ; for more information) within the 70% fraction of the landscape with least importance for biodiversity conservation in each country (data from Pouzols et al ., ). We set the 70% threshold for this study because it implies that 30% of each country's land would be excluded from development, allowing for the cost‐efficient achievement of global biodiversity conservation targets (Pouzols et al ., ; Butchart et al ., ) and a measurable expansion of RE development (Santangeli et al ., ). Calculations were made in arcgis 10.1 (ESRI, Redlands, CA, USA) using the zonal statistics tool and accounting for the change in cell size by latitude.…”