全球清洁能源快速增长引发对土地资源占用的担忧

Land occupation by booming clean energy deserves attention

Most countries in the world have joined the race for carbon neutrality, to meet the goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement, leading to a boom in the clean-energy sector. However, the construction of clean-energy infrastructure can disproportionately occupy limited productive soil and natural land resources, compared to conventional energy plants (Fig. 1). Thus, comprehending the land footprint resulting from the proliferation of clean-energy systems is now imperative, to better anticipate and manage the energy industry, and specifically to quantify the land-use trade-offs of the energy transition in a global context.