Comparing potential biodiversity conflicts from renewable energy expansion in China at different centralization levels.

The rapid deployment of renewable energy creates urgent trade-offs with biodiversity conservation. The uneven distribution of renewable energy potential and biodiversity creates a critical governance challenge: at which administrative level should goal setting and spatial planning decisions be set to best mitigate these conflicts? Here we model the expansion of solar and wind energy in China through 2060 to reach its carbon neutrality goal, to compare a centralized national planning scenario against the current provincial (more decentralized) planning approach. We find that national sitings' spatial conflict with richness-based conservation priorities is 4-7% less and overlaps 11-33% fewer species on average than the provincial planning. However, these gains are offset by greater conflicts with functional diversity and with open or dry biomes, including associated species such as the endangered marbled polecat (Vormela peregusna). By contrast, decentralized planning disproportionately overlapped more with the habitats of small-ranged forest species. Such divergence reveals the limitations of any single governance level in addressing these trade-offs, showing the imperative for integrated, multilevel siting frameworks. Effectively meeting dual climate and biodiversity targets requires strategies that synthesize strengths across administrative scales.

Duke Scholars

Author Junjie Zhang Environmental Social Systems

Author Binbin Li DKU Faculty