https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1509-9280
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Michael J Clifford, Peter Gower, Tanya Anderson, Jaina Moan, Mickey Hazelwood, Sophie S Parker, Laurel Saito, Is our climate fight killing the environment? A case for smart from the start planning, BioScience, Volume 75, Issue 4, April 2025, Pages 273–275, https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biae122
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To reduce greenhouse gas emissions and meet the goal of keeping global average temperatures below a 1.5 degrees Celsius increase, dramatic changes to the transportation and energy sectors are required (IPCC 2022). Transitioning energy generation away from fossil fuels and shifting from internal combustion engines to electric vehicles will require more land to meet the demand for minerals and energy production (Sonter et al. 2020, Wu et al. 2023). Simultaneous to the demands from the energy and transportation sectors is the continued need to conserve intact landscapes to maintain biodiversity (Primm et al. 2014, Diaz et al. 2019). Given the ecological interdependence of the biosphere and the Earth's climatological systems, biodiversity conservation and climate action are strongly interrelated (Kim 2004). Achieving the energy transition while maintaining biodiversity is critically important for the climate, nature, and people. Maintaining biodiversity requires that we conserve land and waters, preserve landscape connectivity and migration corridors, and protect biodiverse hotspots. In the present article, we use the phrase smart from the start to describe an approach that will allow society to balance the development of energy infrastructure projects designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while maintaining the conservation of biodiversity. We urge everyone, including communities, land managers, politicians, investors, corporations, unions, trade organizations, researchers, developers, and utility providers to take a holistic approach to the energy transition—where analyses are needed to understand the cumulative impacts on people and biodiversity and advance projects with the fewest impacts on both. Achieving a balanced outcome may require a shift away from the paradigm of centralized energy generation on previously undisturbed lands in natural landscapes, known as greenfields.
