Stage 3.3 Gain views of key vulnerabilities & risks

Who's Involved
  • Experts from the energy sector, experts in climate change and hydrology and representatives of large energy users, interviewed by the Assignment Management team
Timing and time required
  • During meetings after the ‘Climate risks & vulnerabilities’ workshop
  • 2-3 days
Key questions
  1. What do you consider are the key climate-related vulnerabilities, risks and opportunities for the energy sector?
  2. How efficient is energy generation, transmission, distribution and use?
  3. What are your critical success criteria? How do these relate to climatic factors?
  4. Could climate change affect the balance of different types of energy generation assets?
Tools
  • ‘Climate risks & vulnerabilities’ workshop outputs
Guidance
  1. To build on the workshop discussions and gain deeper understanding of key climate-related vulnerabilities and risks, discuss interviewees’ opinions on how climate can affect the following:  energy security and services; financial performance of the energy sector; reputation of the energy sector; contractual risks; regulatory and legal risks.
  2. Present the empty tables categorizing the likelihood of climate-related hazards to energy sector success criteria and magnitude of climate change consequences (developed at Stage 2.1), and amend them, to take on board the experts’ views of them. This may include adjusting the scales and / or the consequence categories. Based on this, revise the empty risk prioritization table.
  3. Ask for views about which energy sector assets are most at risk from climatic factors – either by virtue of location (e.g. coastal assets vulnerable to  rising sea levels) or asset type (e.g. hydropower plants vulnerable to changes in water flows).
  4. Establish who are the main energy users and what climatic factors affect energy demand at different times of the year.
  5. Discuss the current and future importance of regional energy trade, as neighboring countries will also be affected by climate change and may take adaptation actions which could affect the country.
  6. Discuss what extra information and data can be provided on how the performance of the energy sector (both supply and demand) is affected by climatic factors. Aim where possible to obtain information and data that will enable risks to be quantified. Ensure that you obtain information on the impacts of climate change on the energy sector that has been already been produced in-country, and check that it is based on a range of the best available, most up-to-date climate models. If not, it should be treated with caution.
Outputs
  • Meeting notes
  • Reports and data provided by interviewees