Plans devised for new policies at the climate summit in Egypt should first be examined for risky 'side effects', researchers Pien Barnas and Rak Kim argue. It seemed like such a nice idea: biomass plants would reduce our dependence on coal and natural gas and were therefore given a key role in the energy transition in the 2019 Dutch Climate Agreement. However, three years later, not only do the plants turn out to emit much more carbon and nitrogen than natural gas power plants, but they are also responsible for a substantial loss of biodiversity due to logging practices. This is just one of the examples of climate or environmental policies with unintended consequences; solutions that often result in problemshifting. Capturing plastic. Investments were made in nets to fish plastic out of the sea, but those nets were subsequently found to cause die-offs of marine life. Additionally, our solar panels do produce renewable energy, but at the end of their useful life they create waste that often turns out to be non-recyclable.
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