What an Emerging Narrative About Renewables Gets Wrong

As floods, fires, and heatwaves surge to unprecedented levels, the need for ambitious climate action has never been greater. And with renewable energy projects and electric vehicles sales also surging, the path toward a solution has never been clearer.

However, a new narrative has emerged that threatens to derail progress toward that solution: a growing belief that a rapid transition to a renewable energy system—the very heart of the global plan to stabilize our climate—will itself inflict serious damage to the planet.

National and local media now frequently feature stories of conflict about the land required for wind and solar projects. Articles highlight how the renewable transition will trigger dramatic increases in mining for various metals, prompting essays that question whether electric vehicles are really any better for Mother Earth than our traditional fossil-burning ones (for example, “will your electric car save the world or wreck it?”).

While all development entails tradeoffs, and striving to minimize impacts to communities and nature is critical as we build out renewable energy systems, is it really true that the clean energy transition will harm the planet? That narrative could dilute commitment and delay progress right when leaders need to be doubling down on climate commitments at the 2023 U.N. Climate Change Conference, or COP28, starting in just a few days. Let’s cut through the noise and see if we can arrive at some useful truths.

Together with fellow scientists at World Wildlife Fund and Boston Consulting Group, I examined the total global impacts of a scenario in which the world achieves a rapid renewable-energy transition and successfully holds warming below the critical threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2050. These impacts included the amount of land needed for solar panels and the extent of mining for critical minerals.

We did of course find that this transition will bring some challenges for nature and communities, and our report makes clear what those are and how they might be addressed. But here’s another crucial question to ask: How do the impacts of achieving a rapid transition compare with the impacts of not achieving the transition?

In other words, it’s important to know what the impacts on land will be from achieving the renewable transition. But those consequences should be contextualized alongside the impacts on land—and water and human health—in a world where we don’t meet climate targets, where we continue to burn fossil fuels and countries endure higher levels of associated climate disruption.

In our report, we assessed 30 metrics across eight major categories—including air quality, human well-being, and ecosystems—and compared the impacts of a rapid transition by mid-century to those of a business-as-usual pathway in which fossil fuels still largely power our economies. We found that, for 27 out of 30 of those metrics, a renewable future is far better than business-as-usual fossil energy use, including for two of the main villains in the narrative of renewable impact: the total amount of land affected and the extent of mining. Indeed, a renewable future would see 30 percent less area mined!

These unexpected results are just part of a much bigger picture. From human health to the health of the economy and the natural world, the renewable path does more than deliver a safer future climate. It creates a significantly better future.

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For example, due to dramatic reduction in the burning of fossil fuels, the renewable path will provide far better air quality, which means considerable improvements in human health. Compared to the business-as-usual path, air pollutants will be 60 to 90 percent lower, and death and disability due to air pollution—one of the leading causes of premature mortality globally—will be 86 percent lower.

In other measures of health and safety, the business-as-usual path will expose three times more people to heat stress and flood risk. The renewable path, in contrast, offers greater safety for hundreds of millions of people and nearly three times as many energy jobs, benefiting tens of millions of people.

The choice before us couldn’t be starker. Of course, that doesn’t mean the road we must travel will be free of obstacles and hazards. Even though the renewable path is a far better future than the business-as-usual path, it’s still a future that will require careful planning and implementation to realize its full potential.

That’s because, even though in general there will be far lower negative impacts from a renewable transition, the scale of development needed to achieve this goal will inevitably impose some impacts on communities and ecosystems. And these impacts will be very real for the people and places directly affected. To address this, our report also focused on how to avoid and minimize these impacts to the greatest extent possible—not just because it’s the right thing to do, but also because it will help mitigate the type of conflicts that can delay our much-needed transition.

Impacts on land offers a clear example of this duality: The renewable path has overall better outcomes, but still requires a careful approach. Although the land development footprint of renewables drives most current concern, climate-driven land loss and degradation will be far larger than this footprint, and the business-as-usual future will have twice as much land lost to flooding, fires, and desertification than the renewable future.

Thus, the renewable path is overall better for land impacts, yet the rapid expansion of solar and wind farms and bioenergy crops could lead to local conflicts. These can be avoided and minimized in part by choosing low-conflict areas for development—for example, solar panels on reservoirs and abandoned mines, and wind turbines in pasture—and relying largely on agricultural wastes for bioenergy rather than clearing more land for those crops.

Such solutions are achievable through inclusive planning that covers large areas rather than individual projects. For example, in the desert Southwest United States, where environmental concerns were delaying solar projects, a large-scale planning process identified areas where solar development was appropriate—and also areas where large, connected habitats should be maintained. As a result, permitting times were cut in half while conservation outcomes were also improved.

Development at the scale and pace required to address our climate challenge will inevitably result in some impacts and disruptions. But rather than dwell on a narrative of conflict, we should focus on two points. First, the harms to people and nature from a rapid transition to renewable energy are dramatically lower compared to the changes in store if we do not achieve that transition. Second, there are proven mechanisms to avoid and minimize the negative impacts from a rapid renewable-energy transition.

If we want to achieve a rapid transition that drives better outcomes for the climate, human health, jobs, and nature, we need to transform how we plan and build our energy systems, putting people and nature at the heart of those decisions. Inclusive and transparent decision-making is key to turning a narrative of conflict into one of collaboration that can secure a healthier and safer future.