Mitigating Climate Change Threats to the Energy Sector in the OSCE Region

Across the OSCE region, climate-related hazards, such as droughts, floods, and heatwaves increasingly threaten energy security and the reliability of critical energy infrastructure. In Europe, for example, around 32% of large-scale blackout events over the past 30 years were linked to extreme weather (Stankovski et al 2023), and in 2023 alone, the secure operation of energy infrastructure worldwide was disrupted by approximately 300 extreme weather events (IEA).

At the same time, other systemic pressures – increasing electricity demand, infrastructure constraints, supply chains volatility – are also affecting energy systems stability. As energy systems become more interconnected, disruptions in one component or country will increasingly propagate through regional electricity grids and cross-border energy markets, undermining energy security and energy transition efforts of OSCE participating States. 

While awareness of these risks is increasing, many participating States remain insufficiently prepared to cope with the impacts of climate and other systemic risks on their energy systems. In particular, barriers such as lack of adequate data and expertise in applying such data to the energy sector, and long-term planning and anticipatory tools prevent proactive and science-based decision-making. This hinders efforts to protect existing critical energy infrastructure, design future-proof systems, and enable a secure, sustainable and resilient energy transition. 

The implications go well beyond the energy sector, affecting national security, economic stability, environmental safety and more.

Responding to these challenges, in 2023, the OSCE launched a new project designed to help energy decision-makers and other relevant stakeholders to identify, prevent, and address climate and other systemic risks affecting their energy systems. The project supports countries in Eastern Europe, South-Eastern Europe, the Mediterranean region, and Central Asia. Between 2023 and 2025, the activities included:

• Risk Assessment & Access to Data: Mapping of climate risks to energy systems in 4 OSCE sub-regions; development and delivery of high-resolution, localized climate projections; translation of projections into 60 energy-relevant indices at a 12 km spatial resolution and a mid-century time horizon.
• Decision-making and anticipatory tool:  creation of a GIS-based analytical platform, OSCE Energy Security and Risks Platform (upcoming), providing planners and decision-makers with a strategic planning tool to assess and anticipate potential climate impacts on critical energy infrastructure and identify energy transition opportunities.
• Capacity building: training energy stakeholders on how to use climate models and data, conduct vulnerability assessments, and design resilience-building strategies, supporting improved integration of climate considerations into energy planning.
• Regional cooperation: Promotion of regional dialogue and cross-sectoral collaboration between scientists, planners, and policy-makers working on energy security, climate resilience, and energy transition planning.

In 2026-28, building on the analytical tools and data developed during the initial phase, the project will scale up its support to OSCE participating States in anticipating and addressing a broader range of systemic risks affecting energy systems, thereby strengthening long-term energy security and the resilience of energy transition planning.

This support will be provided through 3 main work streams:

1. Stronger analytical capacity: providing participating States with advanced analytical tools and energy system modelling to assess future vulnerabilities, cascading and cross-border risks, and support energy security and transition planning 
2. Enhanced national capacities: building capacities of national institutions and energy stakeholders to manage overlapping energy security risks and energy developments, and to integrate long-term risk analysis to future-proof their energy plans and systems 
3. Improved anticipatory tools: supporting energy stakeholders across regions to make evidence-based decisions through early warning tools, including an enhanced version of the OSCE Energy Security and Risks Platform (upcoming). The platform will provide user-friendly access to data and interactive visualisations to help identify future risks and opportunities for energy security, resilience and the energy transition.