Negotiating risks to natural capital and stakeholder values in net-zero transitions

Abstract Global and national commitments on climate imply clean energy and industrial infrastructure deployment, and associated land use change, at an unprecedented scale and speed (1). This could have serious implications for natural capital and other important land uses (2). By integrating a macroscale energy system modelling approach (3) with spatially granular downscaling methods (4) for siting of clean energy infrastructure, we first show that 111,000 km2 of the Australian landmass (roughly ×1.7 the area of mainland Tasmania) could be required for renewable infrastructure in a transition of Australia’s domestic and export economy to net-zero emissions. We use three land use cases that incorporate climate goals with consistent handling of Australian Indigenous estate and varying treatments for biodiversity and agriculture to navigate the risks of achieving both a net-zero goal and the sustainable use of natural capital in an uncertain land-use planning future. We find that a given modelled pathway becomes more resilient to uncertainty when alternate land use cases are considered at the outset and included in the identification of clean energy infrastructure projects. We show that it is possible to proactively undertake integrated, inclusive and iterative modelling and planning that embraces uncertainty and diverse stakeholder views on land use change, as nations decarbonize and tackle complex agricultural (5), environmental, social, and cultural challenges (6,7).