Thinking Globally, Siting Locally: Renewable Energy and Biodiversity in a 4C World

The continued rise of greenhouse gas emissions and limited progress toward a low-carbon global-energy economy puts increases of global average temperatures on a course to reach 3C - 4C within this century. Such temperature increases are projected to have devastating impacts on biodiversity and ecosystems in the United States, and globally. At an increase of 4C, for example, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that ~ 50% of recognized species could be committed to extinction. Limiting the magnitude of warming well below these levels will require massive shifts in energy production, including the rapid and large-scale deployment of renewable energy. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) estimates that generating 80% of US electricity from renewable energy by 2050 would reduce cumulative US emissions (2011-2050) from the power sector by more than 40 Gt C02e, or 41%, and reduce annual emissions from the US power sector by nearly 81% by 2050. But the expansion of renewable energy at this scale will have impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem function, affecting ~3 % of US land area for siting, transmission and storage. Concerns over impacts to vulnerable species and their habitats are a source of delay in and opposition to renewable energy siting, particularly for wind and concentrated solar. Efforts to expedite renewable energy expansion while protecting biodiversity need to factor in both the direct biodiversity risks of siting and transmission and the benefits of avoided emissions on reducing the global biodiversity risks of high magnitude warming. Toward this end, we describe a combination of research, outreach, and dialogue designed to help policymakers and stakeholders (1) promote efforts to strategically locate renewable energy projects where impacts to species potentially vulnerable to deployment and operation of renewable energy could be avoided or minimized; (2) recognize the inherent uncertainty in characterizing siting risks to species of concern, including uncertainties associated with the impacts of climate change on those species; and 3) reconcile the risks of biodiversity impacts from siting with the potentially far greater risks to biodiversity from unmitigated climate change.