Critics claim report in top US journal lacked quality control and used data suggesting one park had more than the entire global population
3-MIN READ3-MIN ListenVictoria BelaPublished: 5:00pm, 6 Sep 2026A study in one of the world’s top scientific journals that concluded China’s policy-driven solar energy expansion was harming bird diversity has come under fire after allegations emerged that the analysis may have used observations of 2.1 billion little egrets in a single park – more than the entire global population of the species.It also brought up heated conversations on social media about negative narratives surrounding China’s green energy sector.
The data used to plug into a bird diversity index was taken from the China Birdwatching Record Centre, the largest citizen-science platform for bird observations in the country.
Late last month, a social media post from the China Ornithological Society warned of potential errors in the centre’s records, which it said may have influenced the paper’s conclusions.
It pointed to a logged observation in 2015 of 2.1 billion little egrets in a wetland, and another in 2022 of 1.3 billion red-billed blue magpies in a park, both in Guangdong province.
