Energy

The usage of fossil energy is the major driver of climate change and there is no effective and low-risk mitigation scenario that avoids a transformation to renewable and more sustainable ways of producing, storing, and using energy. However, alternative technologies cannot in all cases hold up to the “green” image projected on them. Damming rivers and covering huge areas under solar panels to produce energy have a tremendous effect on local biodiversity. Large-scale on-land wind farms increase the general pressure on land and by now can be considered a driving factor of deforestation. Restructuring the energy sector in many cases increases the demand for minerals and metals mined under socially and environmentally unacceptable circumstances, while conservative approaches, such as capturing the carbon emitted by coal power stations and storing it underground are associated with great risks. Additionally, a sustainable energy sector introduces new challenges for creating ethical and fair global supply chains. Transforming the energy sector, thus, can be considered a complex and ethically challenging endeavour and requires expertise from a broad range of fields.