China broke its own records for the installation of new solar and wind power last year, with installed capacity increasing by 18 and 45 percent, respectively, according to new data released by the country’s National Energy Administration (NEA) on Tuesday.

Solar and wind power surpassed 1.4 billion kilowatts (KW) in 2024, reported China Daily, adding to the country’s reputation as a world leader in renewable energy development.

Belinda Schäpe, a Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) China policy analyst, said that while the country continued to expand its coal capacity, “this massive scale of renewable power additions has positive implications for emissions in 2025,” Recharge News reported.

“Renewables may reach the turning point where they can meet all of the electricity demand growth, which would make it more likely for China to achieve its emissions peak and structural decline from there,” Schäpe said.

Solar’s installed capacity soared to 890 million KW last year — a 45.2 percent increase from 2023 — while wind-generated power capacity reached 520 million KW, an 18 percent climb, NEA said.

President Xi Jinping in 2020 set a target of a minimum of 1,200 gigawatts (GW) of wind and solar capacity by the end of the decade, which was met almost six years early, NEA data from August revealed, as reported by Electrek.

China has built nearly twice the wind and solar capacity as all other countries in the world combined. It is also the biggest producer of electricity on the planet, and power consumption jumped significantly to 9,852 terawatt hours — up 6.8 percent — in 2024.

While China still uses coal, coal power permits fell by 83 percent during the first half of fiscal year 2024, compared with the same period a year earlier, CREA said. There were also no new approvals of coal-based steelmaking projects during that time.

“The country is committed to further promoting the growth of renewable energy and actively advancing the transformation of its energy mix from a reliance on coal to a more balanced structure,” said Lu Ruquan, head of China National Petroleum Corp Economics and Technology Research Institute, as China Daily reported.

China’s energy transition last year benefited from substantial investments, such as $83.7 billion put toward power grid infrastructure — a 15.3 percent increase from the previous year.

“These investments facilitated the construction of large-scale renewable energy projects, the modernization of grid systems to handle the variability of renewable sources, and the deployment of advanced storage technologies. The expanded grid infrastructure played a critical role in connecting remote renewable energy hubs to urban demand centers,” China Daily said.

Lin Boquiant, head of Xiamen University’s China Institute for Studies in Energy Policy, said the government’s long-term policies, such as subsidies, tax incentives and renewable energy quotas, have incentivized investment in clean energy. Meanwhile, the country’s push to reach peak carbon emissions by 2030 and be carbon-neutral by 2060 has added urgency.

Lin said that innovations in wind turbine design and the efficiency of solar panels have brought down costs while improving the reliability of clean energy systems.

“It will be critical for the government to capitalise on the momentum in the renewables sector. As expected, renewables additions were much higher than the government had targeted. Instead of lowballing these targets, the government should put forward strong targets for the renewables expansion for the next decade, alongside a detailed plan for phasing down coal power,” Schäpe said, as reported by Recharge News.

The post China Sets Wind and Solar Installation Records for Second Year in a Row appeared first on EcoWatch.

https://www.ecowatch.com/china-wind-solar-installation-records-2024.html

Alaska will resume the “barbaric” practice of shooting bears and wolves from helicopters to reduce their numbers with the hope that it will boost moose and caribou herds.

The renewed program would permit hunters to kill as many as 80 percent of the natural predators across 2,000 acres of state lands, reported The Guardian.

“Alaska’s practice of indiscriminately strafing predators is both inhumane and inane,” said Rick Steiner, an ecologist with Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), in a press release from PEER. “There is no scientific evidence that this carnage will boost populations of moose and caribou, and there is a growing body of evidence that it disrupts a healthy predator/prey balance in the wild.”

Environmental groups opposed the practice, which they said has more to do with increasing caribou populations as trophy animals to be killed by hunters than it does with science-based wildlife management, The Guardian reported.

The state’s report on the program followed the Biden administration’s upholding of rules set during President Donald Trump’s first term that allowed other inhumane hunting practices, such as killing cubs in their dens, on Alaska federal lands.

On some state lands in Alaska, “intensive management” practices allow game agents to indiscriminately kill any black bear, brown bear or wolf.

In 2023, almost 100 bears were killed by helicopter, including 20 cubs.

The newest plan would allow 80 percent of wolves to be killed by aerial hunters until their numbers are reduced to 35; cutting down the black bear population by 80 percent to 700 individuals; and bringing the number of brown bears down 60 percent to a population of 375.

Critics of the state’s predator control methods said the state admitted in the report that it did not know the full impact of the practices on bear populations, since estimates of brown bear numbers were not known before the kills were allowed. Over half of brown bears killed last year were adult females, which raises additional concerns about the ability of the population to rebound.

“With a desire to avoid delaying the initiation of bear removal; the Department did not have an opportunity to estimate brown bear densities within the IM areas prior to removals,” the state’s report from October 2024 said.

“The goal of the project was to increase caribou calf survival by removing all bears and wolves from the calving grounds during the spring period when calves are highly susceptible to predation,” the report went on to say. “Data does not exist to evaluate whether the goal was achieved.”

Alaska officials refused to allow photographs to be taken of the killings, to subject the state’s program to federal scientific review or to permit independent observers to witness the slaughter, reported The Guardian.

The mass killing of wildlife in close proximity to national parks leads to major declines in predator numbers on federal lands, PEER said in the press release.

“Due to state predator control practices on adjacent lands, the ability of visitors to see intact wolf packs inside Denali National Park, one of the state’s major tourist draws, has plummeted,” PEER explained.

The National Park Service ended a study of wolf behavior in Yukon-Charley National Preserve that lasted more than 20 years because the same types of practices led to the collapse of the resident wolf population.

“Alaska’s predator control policies are cruel and the epitome of penny wise and pound foolish. The amount of tourist dollars from people seeking to view these predators in the wild dwarfs any incremental increase in hunting fee revenue the state hopes to realize,” said Tim Whitehouse, executive director of PEER, whose organization is circulating a national petition in protest of the most recent aerial gunning operation, in the press release. “Unfortunately, given its prior track record, we do not expect a Trump administration to protect wildlife on federal lands from state predator removal operations no matter how devastating or barbaric.”

The post Alaska to Resume ‘Barbaric’ Aerial Shooting of Wolves and Bears appeared first on EcoWatch.

https://www.ecowatch.com/alaska-wolves-bears.html

While scientists have long known that pesticide use could impact pollinators, a new study reveals how fertilizer could negatively impact these important organisms. Not only that, but the research, which was conducted at the site of the longest ecological experiment in global history, revealed that high fertilizer use could also lead to a decline in flowering plants.

A team led by researchers at the University of Sussex and Rothamsted Research examined fertilizer use over a two-year period at the Park Grass Experiment, Rothamsted. The site is home to the longest-running ecological experiment in the world, which was originally established in 1856 to determine how inorganic fertilizers versus organic manure impacted hay yields, but researchers in the 1850s found that these fertilizers and manures were negatively affecting local species. Following that discovery, the site has become an ongoing experiment to test impacts of varying factors on ecology and soil health. 

A sign describes the Park Grass Experiment at Rothamsted Estate in Hertfordshire, England. Paul Gravestock / Flickr

After increasing the amounts of nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), potassium (K) and magnesium (Mg) through fertilizer use on the site, the researchers found significant impacts on the number of pollinators and, in turn, the species variety and abundance of flowers.

The amount of pollinators in the untreated land plots were about 95% higher than in areas with high fertilizer use, and bees in particular had up to a 9.35 times higher rate of abundance in untreated plots. Plots with higher amounts of fertilizers had higher amounts of flies and beetles.

The team also determined that fertilizer use negatively impacted flowering plants, which had better abundance and diversity when pollinator abundance was higher. The researchers published their findings in the journal npj Biodiversity.

In total, higher levels of nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus led to a five-fold decline in flowering plants and a 50% decline in pollinators, as The Guardian reported.

“As you increase fertilisers, pollinator numbers decrease – that’s the direct link that​ to our knowledge has never been shown before,” Nicholas Balfour, lead researcher of the study, told The Guardian. “It’s having a drastic effect on flowers and insects. The knock-on effect goes right up the food chain.”

The researchers determined that other land management strategies, such as using lime or clover, could help maintain better yields while reducing biodiversity loss. The results showed that plots with lime had 50% more pollinators, 70% more pollinator species richness, 15% more flower abundance and 68% more flower species richness, compared to plots without lime.

According to the study, agricultural grasslands make up about 25% of Earth’s land, but artificial nitrogen fixation and using other fertilizers on these lands makes up about 1.4% of global carbon emissions. Further, fertilizer use leads to soil eutrophication, which changes ecosystems and can lead the grasslands to lose biodiversity of native plants and pollinators.

As The Guardian reported, the UK uses about 100 kilograms of fertilizer for every 1 hectare of agricultural grassland. In the study, the highest amount of fertilizer use was about 144 kilograms of fertilizer per hectare, which led to around 50% declines in pollinators, with the biggest impacts on native bees.

According to the study authors, reducing fertilizer use on agricultural grasslands could lead to improved biodiversity, better resilience to extreme weather, natural pest control, improved soil health, reduced air pollution, and other benefits.

“To realize these benefits, well-designed policies are needed to incentivize the sustainable management of pastoral landscapes,” the authors concluded. “Our data indicate that soil nutrients management strategies that favour nitrogen-fixing legumes, i.e. low to zero N and intermediate P, K and Mg inputs, with lime addition can lessen the trade-off between biodiversity and yield in agricultural grasslands.”

The post Higher Fertilizer Use Reduces Pollinators by Half and Plants Suffer in Response, Study Finds appeared first on EcoWatch.

https://www.ecowatch.com/fertilizers-pollinators-impact.html