The world has agreed to triple renewable energy by 2030 to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement and avoid the worst climate change impacts. Every watt that we can reduce through efficiency or shift from fossil fuel to renewables like wind power or solar power is a step in the right direction.
The best science we have tells us that to avoid the worst impacts of global warming, we must globally achieve net-zero carbon emissions no later than 2050. To do this, the world must immediately identify pathways to reduce carbon emissions from all sectors: transportation, agriculture, electricity, and industry. This cannot be achieved without a major shift to renewable energy.
Clean energy and technological innovation are not only helping mitigate climate change, but also helping create jobs and support economic growth in communities across the world. Renewable energy such as wind and solar have experienced remarkable growth and huge cost improvements over the past decade with no signs of slowing down.
Prices are declining rapidly, and renewable energy is becoming increasingly competitive with fossil fuels all around the world. In some places, new renewable energy is already cheaper than continuing to operate old, inefficient, and dirty fossil fuel-fired power plants.
However, it’s important that renewable energy development isn’t built at the expense of protecting unique ecosystems or important agricultural lands. Without proactive planning, renewable energy developments could displace up to 76 million acres of farm and wildlife habitat—an area the size of Arizona.
Fortunately, TNC studies have found that we can meet clean energy demand 17 times over without converting more natural habitat. The key is to deploy new energy infrastructure on the wealth of previously converted areas such as agricultural lands, mine sites, and other transformed terrain, at a lower cost.
Thoughtful planning is required at every step. For instance, much of the United States’ wind potential is in the Great Plains, a region with the best remaining grassland habitat on the continent. TNC has mapped out the right places to site wind turbines in this region in order to catalyze renewable energy responsibly, and we’re doing the same analysis for India and Europe as well.
There can also be unique interventions to protect wildlife where clean energy has already been developed. In Kenya, for instance, a wind farm employs biodiversity monitors to watch for migrating birds, and can order individual turbines to shut down in less than a minute.