Dec 11 2018
According to a new study, a large-scale expansion in bioenergy crop production could be just as harmful to biodiversity as climate change itself.
This is a hedgehog. (Image credit - Professor Stephen Willis, Durham University)
The study, which involved expertise from Durham University’s Department of Biosciences, examined the possible impacts of future climate and land-use change on vertebrate biodiversity across the globe.
The researchers argue there is a pressing need to judiciously consider biodiversity when expanding bioenergy cropland, for instance, growing maize, oil palm, and rapeseed.
Familiar species that would be projected to decline considerably across their global range as a result of an expansion in bioenergy cropland coupled with climate change include the hedgehog (44% potential loss), red squirrel (46% potential loss) and common starling (15% potential loss), say the scientists.
Universally, palm oil production is already identified to be having a harmful impact on orangutan populations.
The study, which is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on December 10th, 2018, was led by the Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre and the Technical University of Munich, Germany, in partnership with Durham University.
We found that the combination of climate change and large-scale expansion of bioenergy crops would together threaten about 36% of the habitats of all global vertebrate species, including many that are already the subject of significant conservation work. While bioenergy is clearly an important tool for climate change mitigation, the potential impacts on biodiversity must not be ignored. A strong reliance on bioenergy to combat climate change could result in outcomes for biodiversity that are little better than would occur if we didn't implement bioenergy strategies, despite the consequent climate change implications. Instead, we should be thinking about how to swiftly and significantly reduce energy consumption if biodiversity is to be protected.
Stephen Willis, Professor, Department of Biosciences, Durham University.
To meet the Paris Agreement aims of keeping the rise in global temperatures below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels, a number of climate mitigation scenarios depend on increased bioenergy use, necessitating large-scale production of crops such as rapeseed, corn, and oil palm.
As part of their research, the team compared two scenarios. The first would lead to global warming of approximately 1.5 °C by the year 2100 and depends on a maximum use of bioenergy. Under the second scenario, temperatures rise by approximately 3 °C by the year 2100, with a very limited use of bioenergy.
In order to limit climate change in this way, we would need to cultivate bioenergy crops on approximately 4.3 % of the global land area by 2100— which corresponds to almost one-and-a-half times the area of all EU countries combined. This would severely affect the biodiversity currently found in these regions. The reduction of the negative effects of climate change achieved by the maximum use of bioenergy is not enough to offset this loss of biodiversity.
Dr Christian Hof, Technical University of Munich.
Dr Hof, conducted the research at the Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre and is currently based at the Technical University of Munich.
At the recent UN Climate Change Conference in Poland, curbing climate change has been significant to discussions.
The impacts of bioenergy cropland expansion are already becoming obvious. In tropical zones, oil-palm plantations are having a harmful impact on fauna and flora. In temperate regions, the replacement of other crops with maize has harmfully affected populations of mammals and farmland birds.
The research is part of the BioScen1point5 project in the program “Support for an expanded and improved scientific basis for the IPCC special report regarding a global temperature increase by 1.5 °C (SR1.5),” supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research.