Conflict of Greens and Sustainable Energy Planning

In the face of climate change, there has been an effort to reduce global fossil fuel consumption and promote green energy. Taiwan has taken a leading role with its new green energy policy by pledging to make renewable energy 20% of the country’s total energy production by 2025. But the ground impacts of such policies require drastic infrastructure changes, putting pressure on local and regional governments to find land for the cause. Remote, public owned lands tend to be the first to be picked for development, but many of these lands, which are seen as “abandoned” by government officials and developers, actually hold important ecosystems that provide critical habitat for endangered species and other wildlife. Many of these lands also provide important ecosystem services to rural communities whose voices are too often ignored in the face of large developments and political pressure. The research done by the Water Sustainability Lab focuses on promoting Integrated Resource Planning for renewable energy development in Taiwan, as well as distributed, mixed-use, and community scale renewable energy development that can actually be integrated into rural and local economies.