Energy systems need decarbonisation in order to limit global warming to within safe limits. While global land planners are promising more of the planet’s limited space to wind and solar photovoltaic, there is little information on where current infrastructure is located. The majority of recent studies use land suitability for wind and solar, coupled with technical and socioeconomic constraints, as a proxy for actual location data. Here, we address this shortcoming. Using readily accessible OpenStreetMap data we present, to our knowledge, the first global, open-access, harmonised spatial datasets of wind and solar installations. We also include user friendly code to enable users to easily create newer versions of the dataset. Finally, we include first order estimates of power capacities of installations. We anticipate these data will be of widespread interest within global studies of the future potential and trade-offs associated with the global decarbonisation of energy systems.

Significance: Conservation scientists warn of the threat to area-based conservation posed by renewable energy infrastructure. Here, we show that the current and near-term overlap of the two land uses need not be as severe as previously suggested. This is important, as global efforts to decarbonize energy systems are central to mitigating against climate change and the strong negative impacts of projected climate change on biodiversity.

Site‐based industrial operations such as mining, oil and gas extraction and renewable energy development are associated with many direct and indirect impacts on biodiversity. Consideration of the full range of these impacts when selecting a buffer distance to approximate the Area of Influence (AoI) of a project is critical for effective biodiversity risk screening. Indirect impacts, however, are elusive despite often being more extensive than direct ones, both temporally and spatially. There is also limited clarity on the distinction between direct and indirect impacts, leading to the latter either being missed from screening analyses or misclassified as direct impacts. Here we propose a definition of indirect impacts and a framework for incorporating them in risk and impact analyses. We define indirect impacts as those that are triggered by wider socio‐economic and demographic changes induced by the project and not directly by project operations. Indirect impacts manifest through three pathways: increased access to intact ecosystems, increased in‐migration and settlement and increased viability of other economic activity. A range of factors, however, can act as predictors of the likelihood and intensity of indirect impacts and form the basis of a decision‐making framework to select a buffer that captures their AoI effectively.

The International Finance Corporation (IFC) defines Critical Habitat in Performance Standard 6 (PS6) as high biodiversity value areas requiring net biodiversity gain for projects. We present an updated global screening layer of Critical Habitat aligned with IFC’s 2019 guidance. This layer derives from global datasets covering 54 biodiversity features, categorized as ‘Likely’ or ‘Potential’ Critical Habitat based on alignment with IFC criteria and data suitability. Analysis indicates 53.95 million km ² (10.58%) and 13.71 million km ² (2.69%) of the globe can be considered Likely and Potential Critical Habitat respectively, with the remaining 86.73% not overlapping with assessed biodiversity features. This represents a significant increase over previous efforts but likely remains a significant underestimation of actual Critical Habitat. Likely Critical Habitat was dominated by Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas, Intact Forest Landscapes, and protected areas; Potential Critical Habitat by Important Marine Mammal Areas and ranges of IUCN Vulnerable species.