Biodiversity impacts of different net zero carbon pathways for the UK energy system. (4480)

许多国家和公司已经宣布了在未来几十年的某个时候实现净零碳排放的目标，以减轻气候变化可能造成的破坏性影响。例如，英国的目标是到2050年实现净零。虽然能源系统的脱碳预计将在英国的净零战略中发挥关键作用，但人们对这种能源转型对生物多样性(也处于危机中)的潜在影响缺乏了解。许多低碳能源技术，如风力涡轮机和太阳能电池板，从原材料生产到使用，直到生命周期结束，都可能对生物多样性产生负面影响。例如，用于各种可再生能源和电池技术(如稀土、钴、锂和铜)的金属开采预计将大幅增长，以满足需求。专用能源作物可能需要大规模种植，以提供碳捕获和储存(BECCS)生物能源的原料，在许多净零碳途径中，BECCS被认为是最可行的负排放技术之一。采矿和种植生物能源作物都可以通过直接改变土地利用来对生物多样性造成重大影响。风力涡轮机、太阳能电池板和潮汐能等可再生能源的使用阶段也可能产生负面的生态影响，从而影响生物多样性，这在很大程度上取决于部署的地点。该博士项目将通过以下方式提高对英国能源系统生物多样性影响的理解：1)使用生命周期评估(LCA)方法量化不同能源技术对生物多样性的潜在应激源(例如，土地利用变化)；2)确定这些应激源在不同生命周期阶段的可能位置；3)评估不同净零路径下全球和国家生物多样性足迹的空间显式。该项目的成果将使政策制定者避免问题转移，并更好地管理气候和生物多样性目标之间的协同作用和权衡。

Many countries and companies have announced targets to reach net zero carbon at some point in the next few decades in a bid to mitigate the potentially devastating impact of climate change. The UK, for example, aims to achieve net zero by 2050. Whilst decarbonisation of the energy system is expected to play a key role in the UK's net zero strategy, the potential impact of this energy transformation on biodiversity (also in crisis) is poorly understood.Many low carbon energy technologies such as wind turbines and solar panels can have negative impacts on biodiversity over their entire life cycle from raw material production, through their use, to their end of life. For example, mining of metals used in a wide range of renewable energy and battery technologies such as rare earth, cobalt, lithium and copper are projected to grow significantly to meet the demand. Dedicated energy crops might need to be grown on a large scale to provide the feedstock for bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), which is considered as one of the most viable negative emission technologies in many net zero carbon pathways. Both mining and growing bioenergy crops can cause significant biodiversity impact through direct land use change. The use phase for renewables such as wind turbines, solar panels and tidal power can also have negative ecological and hence biodiversity impacts, largely depending on the location of deployment.This PhD project will improve understanding of the scale of the biodiversity impacts of different net zero pathways for the UK energy system by: 1) quantifying potential stressors on biodiversity (e.g., land use change) induced by different energy technologies using the life cycle assessment (LCA) method; 2) identifying the likely locations of these stressors at different life cycle stages; and 3) assessing the spatially explicit global and national biodiversity footprint under different net zero pathways. The outputs from the project will inform policy makers to avoid problem shifting and better manage the synergies and trade-offs between climate and biodiversity goals.