Balance between climate change mitigation benefits and land use impacts of bioenergy: conservation implications for European birds

Abstract

Both climate change and habitat modification exert serious pressure on biodiversity. Although climate change mitigation has been identified as an important strategy for biodiversity conservation, bioenergy remains a controversial mitigation action due to its potential negative ecological and socio-economic impacts which arise through habitat modification by land-use change. While the debate continues, the separate or simultaneous impacts of both climate change and bioenergy on biodiversity have not yet been compared. We assess projected range shifts of 156 European bird species by 2050 under two alternative climate change trajectories: a baseline scenario, where the global mean temperature increases by 4°C by the end of the century, and a 2 degrees scenario, where global concerted effort limits the temperature increase to below 2°C. For the latter scenario, we also quantify the pressure exerted by increased cultivation of energy biomass as modelled by IMAGE2.4, an integrated land-use model. The global bioenergy use in this scenario is in the lower end of the range of previously estimated sustainable potential. Under the assumptions of these scenarios, we find that the magnitude of range shifts due to climate change is far greater than the impact of land conversion to woody bioenergy plantations within the European Union, and that mitigation of climate change reduces the exposure experienced by species. However, we identified potential for local conservation conflict between priority areas for conservation and bioenergy production. These conflicts must be addressed by strict bioenergy sustainability criteria that acknowledge biodiversity conservation needs beyond existing protected areas and apply also to biomass imported from outside the European Union.

Biodiversity scenarios neglect future land‐use changes

“…Climate change mitigation strategies include important modifications of the land surface such as the increased prevalence of biofuel crops. This mitigation action may pose some conflicts between important areas for biodiversity conservation and bioenergy production (Alkemade et al, 2009;Fletcher et al, 2011;Meller et al, 2015). In integrated assessment models or other global land-use models, such interactions are often restricted to impacts of climate change on crop productivity and shifts in potential production areas.…”

Technological pathways for bioenergy generation from municipal solid waste: Renewable energy option

“…A SWOT analysis tool is applied to access the opportunities, challenges, and constraints for MSW biomass as feedstock for generation of biofuels, with future development, setting priority areas for future actions. The main challenges and the opportunities are presented in Table as a SWOT analysis .…”

Transient trade‐off between climate benefit and biodiversity loss of harvesting stumps for bioenergy

“…Johansson et al (2016) indeed found potentially negative effects on already rare species, and de Jong & Dahlberg (2017) points out that high levels of stump extraction will likely affect species of conservation interest. At the same time, reductions of these and other species due to a warming climate may be even more severe (Ellis, 2013;Meller et al, 2015).…”