The Construction of New Energy Projects Must Pay Attention to Protecting Nature | ZHOU Talks about the Fourth Civilization (Lecture 299)

Recently, the Secretary-General of the China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation (CBCGDF) explained the impact of large-scale development and construction of new energy projects on biodiversity when being interviewed by a reporter.

New energy projects are a positive measure to implement the dual carbon goals and respond to the climate crisis, but their impact on biodiversity is also huge, so we must be careful not to lose sight of the big picture.

The most fatal damage to humans by the climate crisis is that it will have a huge impact on biodiversity. Therefore, we cannot ignore the impact of the construction of new energy projects on biodiversity just because we have to respond to the climate crisis. The United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) adopted at the second phase of the COP15,the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, which states that the biggest impact on the loss of biodiversity on the earth is the change in human use of land and oceans. A wind farm in France was closed because it was harmful to birds, and a hydropower station in Sichuan was stopped because of its impact on plants... We must be aware of the priority of biodiversity conservation.

It is not to say that all new energy projects have a negative impact on biodiversity. We have recently been paying attention to and studying photovoltaic projects on the edge of the desert and in appropriate locations in the Gobi Desert. These projects will help green the ground to a certain extent by reducing the sunlight on the ground and reducing evaporation on a large scale. The impact of new energy is multifaceted, but because new energy projects often appear in a sudden, single and large-scale form, they must be highly valued and avoid key areas of the ecosystem to reduce excessive negative impacts on it, just like the human body, patting the arms and back twice may not It will cause too much harm, but you can't hit it in the eye.

Nature is our biggest ally in dealing with the climate crisis. Let me tell you a story. Scientists did an experiment. There were elephants in one forest and no elephants in another forest. The forest with elephants had stronger carbon fixation because elephants ate grass and then continued to grow grass. Grass can grow many times in one piece of land. There is a lot of carbon in the elephant's excrement. Elephants eat plants, and part of their excrement will become peat and be fixed, providing nutrients to the soil to nourish the trees, making the trees in this forest grow taller, with more developed root systems, and significantly increasing the amount of carbon fixation.

A large number of organisms are our allies in carbon fixation. Oil and coal are originally plants and animals. Nature has the greatest carbon fixation capacity. Of course, its disadvantage is that the speed is a bit slow and the cycle is a bit long, because it takes time for plants and animals to grow. But we must never treat nature, a friend of the dual carbon goal, slowly. We should fully support and protect nature's carbon fixation capacity. Therefore, in the construction of clean energy, we must put the protection of nature and biodiversity first, and let green waters and green mountains always be the first.

Original article:https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/_7E58hc_JyEe4b5R47ns0g

Translator:Daisy

Checked by Sara

Editor: Daisy

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