Green Energy Statecraft for Comprehensive National Security
By Elizabeth Thurbon, Alexander M. Hynd, Hao Tan, Susan Park & Andrew Walter
The green energy transition has profound implications for national security, comprehensively conceived (while the energy shift also has important global security implications, we focus here on the national implications and related governance opportunities and challenges). States with the ambition and ability to govern the shift will reap significant energy, economic, social, environmental, and military security rewards. These multifaceted national security gains will be larger than those accruing from a less integrated, non-strategic governance approach. The latter would substantially diminish the likelihood of achieving a successful energy transition – the obvious and ultimate imperative for all nations. A non-strategic approach would also jeopardise related objectives like the achievement of ‘green energy superpower’ status, now the stated ambition of several national governments including China, the US, UK, Australia and India.
