China NGO proposal included in UN policy recommendation

Organizations says combining solar power, agriculture slows desertification, conserves soil moisture

A proposal from a Chinese NGO on synergizing biodiversity and energy governance has been included in the policy briefs for the 2022 session of the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development.

Convened under the auspices of the United Nations Economic and Social Council, the forum kicked-off on July 5 and ended on Friday. 

The proposal from the Global Energy Interconnection Development and Cooperation Organization was incorporated into policy recommendations for the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, the UN Economic Commission for Africa and the UN Economic and Social Commission for West Asia, according to a media release from the Beijing-headquartered organization.

Established in China in 2016, GEIDCO is a nongovernmental, nonprofit international organization with member firms, associations, institutions and individuals dedicated to promoting the sustainable development of energy worldwide. 

According to the brief, the urgent need to protect biodiversity overlaps with and reinforces the need for energy transition, especially in parts of the world where there are abundant solar energy resources, particularly in desert areas.

It called for the development of agrivoltaics, a combination of solar energy and agriculture, as the installation of power-generation facilities can help slow down ground wind speeds, reduce the impact of precipitation and moisture evaporation from the soil, as well as slow the expansion of deserts. 

The document estimates that a 1-gigawatt PV agrivoltaics project can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by about 1.2 million metric tons a year, help break wind speeds and fix sand in place across an area of 4,000 hectares, playing a role equivalent to planting 640,000 trees.

In dry African coastal regions, electricity from zero-carbon renewable energy can be used to desalinate seawater and produce fresh water for residential use and environmental restoration, thus combining the prevention, treatment, and use of desertified land and forging a virtuous circle of energy development, desalination, and ecological management.

Efforts to promote the UN's Sustainable Development Goal 7 — affordable and clean energy for all — should help advance efforts to tackle climate change and biodiversity loss. "However, there has been a lack of synergistic governance between biodiversity and energy, not to mention a systematic solution with a global perspective," the brief stated, recommending that countries integrate solar PV deployment into desertification control and seawater desalination objectives, and track progress as an indicator of land restoration and habitat conservation.