Maintaining Momentum in the Energy Transition

Maintaining Momentum in the Energy Transition — Co-Benefits between Climate, Affordability, and Security

Date: Tuesday 17 March 2026
Time: 09:00–16:00 CET, followed by dinner

Objectives: To explore how climate and security priorities intersect in shaping the economics and investability of the energy transition, and to identify strategies that balance resilience, affordability, and technological innovation in a world of growing geopolitical and financial uncertainty as well as defence–infrastructure–energy interconnections.

Maintaining the pace of the energy transition now depends as much on security as on climate or market forces. Rising geopolitical instability, new hybrid threats, and expanding defence commitments are redefining national priorities and investment choices. Security has become both a constraint and a potential enabler: military readiness, industrial resilience, and the energy transition increasingly draw on the same resources, technologies, and supply chains.

At the same time, fiscal pressure, volatile energy prices, and diverging climate policies are reshaping global finance and trade. Emerging economies continue to seek affordable and reliable energy growth, altering markets for technology, capital, and critical materials. In this environment, investors must balance returns against exposure to geopolitical, technological, and regulatory risk.

This workshop explores how to sustain global and regional momentum toward decarbonisation while integrating security as a core element of transition strategy. Discussions will focus on flexible systems, financing mechanisms, risk-sharing tools, and business models that attract capital in uncertain conditions; on how innovation and industrial policy can deliver resilience by design; and on how defence and transition spending can reinforce one another. By linking climate ambition with economic competitiveness and security imperatives, the workshop aims to define credible, cooperative pathways to maintain momentum — turning resilience into a source of strategic stability and growth.

Preliminary programme

09:00	Framing Session — Unlocking the Co-Benefits between National Security and Transition Investments Interfaces between civil and military sectors, understanding shared vulnerabilities and assets. Evidence on trade-offs or synergies between climate goals, affordability, and national security: what do research and experience show? How transition investments and new infrastructures can strengthen defence preparedness.
10:00	Break Coffee/tea and informal discussions.
10:30	Session I: Transition Technologies and Solutions – Resilience by Design Flexibility in the energy system. Grid reliability and optimal “islanding” under stress. Flexible supply chains: Critical raw materials: new vulnerabilities and opportunities. Circular economy and recycling as tools for resilience. Decentralised energy systems and integration of energy vectors. Maintaining readiness and preparedness — independence versus diversified interdependence. Presentations, interventions and round-table discussion.
12:00	Lunch Informal networking.
13:00	Session II: Finance, Investments & Economics Scaling requires massive investment and effective risk-sharing — can security and transition goals align? Realistic business models for a high-cost capital environment. Human and financial capital challenges in an accelerated transition. Are the EU Green Deal and U.S. IRA still providing sufficient momentum? Presentations, interventions and round-table discussion.
14:30	Break Coffee/tea and informal discussions.
15:00	Session III: Maintaining Momentum – Key Take-Aways How to sustain the pace of transition under heightened security and fiscal pressure. Global contrasts: sufficiency and degrowth in the North vs. growth and reliability in the South. Round-table reflection and summary messages.