Weaponisation of energy systems and policy in the age of climate change

This paper offers a comprehensive insight into an identifiable but under-researched phenomenon of the weaponisation of energy within regional geopolitics, critically analysing the challenges for energy security and resilience. It argues that weaponisation not only takes the form of direct physical attacks on energy infrastructure but also deploys economic and climate change policies as forms of weaponisation. It explores the implications for the energy security of energy transition, demonstrating that new and unexpected conflicts may arise. It goes on to review energy security policy in the European Union (EU) by way of a case study of attempts to build resilience as part of energy transition to combat threats to the system, including cyber-attacks, and to reduce vulnerabilities in energy supply. It then critiques the response of international law to the weaponisation of energy systems and the resultant humanitarian impacts. The final substantive section appraises weaponisation in the context of net zero carbon policies, suggesting that climate action is becoming a geopolitical weapon with all of the capacity to replace tensions, which have historically surrounded access to oil and gas, with not dissimilar frictions in relation to renewable energy systems and their components and products. In conclusion clean energy transition is intensifying rather than ameliorating energy weaponisation.