Climate Security Challenges in the Asia-Pacific: Securing Energy, Trade and Transition

The surging impacts of climate change pose significant challenges to the Asia-Pacific region, particularly its highly interconnected and resource-dependent energy systems. The region is vulnerable to diverse climate security challenges that increasingly present social, environmental, economic, and policy risks. The impacts of these challenges are especially prominent on the energy sector, threatening the region’s transition to a net-zero future.

The workshop aims to discuss climate security implications for the region’s energy sector and strategies to mitigate these risks. The discussions will first present an overarching framework of climate security debates in the Asia-Pacific region, exploring its interconnections with energy sector dynamics. Secondly, drawing on examples from East, Southeast, and South Asia, as well as Pacific Island communities, the discussions will focus on the policy implications for the region's energy sector, stemming from global climate policy changes as well as the physical risks to energy infrastructure.

Climate concerns are also indirectly shaping increased resource competition and heightened geopolitics for non-energy resources, such as critical minerals, which are pivotal for the clean energy transition. Moreover, extreme weather events are causing physical destruction of renewable energy infrastructure, underscoring the need for enhanced climate-proofing as a strategy to support the clean energy transition.

Another layer of complexity arises as trade tariffs and measures such as the CBAM aim to limit the import of emission-intensive products into the Global West, posing a long-term economic challenge to the Asia-Pacific’s export markets. Given the complexity and interlinkages between climate security vulnerabilities and the energy sector, efforts to integrate effective strategies into the region’s energy and climate policies are critically important. To understand these complexities and propose strategies, the workshop will also examine challenges both within and outside the region, including those arising from its geographic and climate vulnerabilities, as well as the impact of the evolving political landscape in the Global West.

The workshop will bring together policymakers, researchers, and industry experts to discuss strategies for navigating the dual imperatives of climate and energy security. Key outcomes will include recommendations for incorporating climate security elements into energy policymaking in the region.