Governments and companies have been urged to conduct nature risk assessments when identifying sites for renewable energy plants, to minimise biodiversity impacts while enhancing investments, by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).
Robert Adamczyk, senior environmental advisor at EBRD, made the call during an online event on the margins of the ongoing 6th UN Environment Assembly.
The webinar, hosted by NGO Fauna and Flora, focused on ensuring that investments in renewable energy development do not come at the expense of nature.
“When we finance renewables, we look at the big impacts that they can have. Sometimes the location might seem good, but it could collide with biodiversity issues, particularly migratory species,” Adamczyk stressed.
“Too often, governments select renewable sites without considering the impact on nature, biodiversity, or people. Companies must work with the governments to pick the right sites for their projects. They also have to carry out an appropriate environmental impact assessment and ensure it is financially successful.”
As biodiversity climbs the global political and economic agenda, investors are increasingly asking that the climate crisis does not prevent energy companies from addressing biodiversity loss.
Jose Rubio, senior technical specialist at Fauna and Flora, underlined during the webinar that wind farms or large-scale solar projects can require extensive land use, which potentially leads to disruption, fragmentation, and biodiversity loss.
“There are studies showing that around 5% of the total global land is going to be occupied by solar farms by 2050,” Rubio warned. “That’s a massive extension that can heavily impact biodiversity.”
TOP BARRIERS
“Risk to nature is one of the top barriers for the renewable industry,” said Steven Dickinson, biodiversity expert at major oil company TotalEnergies.
“Sometimes we go as far as not going for a certain number of projects because they’re located in the wrong place. But we lose out from a competitive aspect.”
Rachel Asante-Owusu, senior programme coordinator for climate change at International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), highlighted how a set of defined good practices is crucial for developers and investors to assess their impacts on nature.
Asante-Owusu is working on the IUCN Global Initiative for Nature, Grids, and Renewables (GINGR), a programme aiming at accelerating the deployment of renewables and electricity grids while ensuring the protection and restoration of biodiversity through providing tools and methodologies to monitor and report progress towards nature targets.
“We need good and best practices wherever we’re operating to recognise the inherent value of conservation in the landscape or the seascape,” she said.
As software company Esri told Carbon Pulse last week, technology-based mapping tools can be a powerful tool to scale up financing for ecosystems and species preservation, as they can help target areas where conservation practices are most needed.
EYES ON THE SUPPLY CHAIN
The transition to a low-carbon future with a greater reliance on renewables will heavily depend on mining and metals. “We need significant resources for doing the transition, and the sourcing of minerals is going to be a big issue,” TotalEnergies’ Dickinson said.
According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), the world will need three times more renewable energy capacity by 2030 to meet the Paris Agreement.
Last year, IEA published a projection about the global demand for the main critical materials of the energy transition – including copper, lithium, cobalt, and nickel – many of which are in already threatened ecosystems.
The demand will increase by three to 14-fold between 2021 and 2030, Aidan Davy, co-chief operating officer at the International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM), underscored during the webinar.
Source: Fauna and Flora
“These figures represent a tremendous challenge in terms of restoration and protection”, Rubio said about Fauna and Flora’s figures in the graph above.
“We need to start reducing waste and reusing materials to extend the life of these minerals and materials. The renewable sector and supply chain of the renewable sector must become our allies in tackling the biodiversity crisis instead of an additional threat to our nature”.
By Giada Ferraglioni – giada@carbon-pulse.com
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