What does resilience actually mean? And what role shall resilience play in the energy transition?

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The crises of the past years have revealed the fragility of our global, interconnected economic systems. After decades of chasing efficiency and just-in-time supply chains, the crises disrupted everything within weeks. For example, at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, most countries didn&rsquo;t have access to a lot of medical material primarily because of the disrupted supply chains. This has led to a temporary collapse of the health systems in many countries, and other sectors were affected too, including energy. Out of the ashes rose the concept of resilience, as an answer to many of the issues we currently face. But what does resilience actually mean? And what role shall resilience play in the energy transition?</span></p>
<h2><strong>The dilemma between resilience and efficiency</strong></h2>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">I am a big fan of system dynamics. Our whole world can be described as a complex system with its own actors, interactions, rules, constraints, goals, relationships, etc. A key characteristic is that the dependencies within the system are hard or difficult to predict and one small change or turbulence could have huge effects on the functioning of a system. Furthermore, other key characteristics are a system&rsquo;s efficiency and resilience. Efficiency can be described as the ratio between output and input, for example in energy or monetary terms. Resilience can be described as how strong the relationships of a system&rsquo;s parts are, and to what extent those systems can absorb changes of parameters and still persist.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Let me use the current issue with gas imports in Europe as an example to explain those concepts shortly. It would be most efficient to procure all our needs from one single cheap supplier. But this is not resilient, because the supply chain only needs to have one small disruption, for example, a technical error, and we are left without gas. On the other hand, the most resilient option would be to source gas from every possible supplier in the world, but this would be immensely costly and, hence, inefficient because we would need to build infrastructure for each of the suppliers. Resilience and efficiency are therefore in most cases opposite to each other (there are of course exceptions). The </span><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/271506661_Money_and_sustainability_the_missing_link_a_report_from_the_Club_of_Rome_-_EU_Chapter_to_Finance_Watch_and_the_World_Business_Academy"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Club of Rome has analysed</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> the relationship between efficiency and resilience and in order to maximise your system&rsquo;s sustainability, we need to balance those two parameters out, as shown in the figure below.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Figure 1.</strong> Relationship between efficiency and resilience</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><img style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" src="https://illuminem.b-cdn.net/articlebody/3340290e576c9a287904dc9aa605ac039daffd9b.PNG?" alt="relationship between efficiency and resilience" /></span><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/271506661_Money_and_sustainability_the_missing_link_a_report_from_the_Club_of_Rome_-_EU_Chapter_to_Finance_Watch_and_the_World_Business_Academy"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Source: Club of Rome</span></a></p>
<h2><strong>The role of resilience in energy transitions</strong></h2>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">While resilience is crucial to keep systems and their interactions alive in case of a shock, one must also explore to what extent we should make our energy systems more resilient to respond to external shocks or crises. For example, the war in Ukraine has exposed the lack of resilience of the European fossil gas markets, with enormous adverse effects on global energy trade. A more resilient European energy system wouldn&rsquo;t have allowed for such significant detrimental effects. While there is a clear imbalance between efficiency and resilience in energy systems as shown in the European example, it is needless to say that our global energy system falls short on many other aspects as well. The current global energy system contributes greatly to the climate crisis, and fossil fuels, its backbone, still today poison the environment &amp; people.&nbsp;&nbsp;</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The energy transition towards more inclusive and clean energies is one of the biggest endeavours humanity has ever embarked on &ndash; it is nothing less than changing the structure (physical and social) of our entire world. It will take decades and we might not even finish it by the end of the century (maybe there isn&rsquo;t a finishing line after all?). While the upcoming decades will be shaped by transformations, disruptions will increase immensely too. Extreme weather events and other disasters will test our global energy system in the upcoming decades more than ever before.</span></p>
<blockquote>
<p><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Every disaster presents an opportunity for system change, but resilience prevents that change from happening. Resilience means sticking to the status quo, by preserving the system that existed before the shock.</span></em></p>
</blockquote>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Resilience may help get through some of the shocks but does not help in advancing towards a transition. Every disaster presents an opportunity for system change, but resilience prevents that change from happening. Resilience means sticking to the status quo, by preserving the system that existed before the shock. This could dramatically slow down energy transitions, therefore striving for resilience may actually mean striving for non-transition. So what shall we do?</span></p>
<h2><strong>Towards adaptable energy systems</strong></h2>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Adaptability, or the ability to adapt, is a concept that is very relevant to navigating through the climate crisis. Climate adaptation has become increasingly important to ensure that our societies won&rsquo;t be affected as much by the crisis&rsquo; negative effects. As such, adaptability is not about having a system that remains the same after a shock but creating a system that learns from those shocks and takes a different form, making it less vulnerable to future shocks. It is for a good reason that policymakers don&rsquo;t advocate for climate resilience, but for climate adaptation. And what is true for climate, is also true for energy.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The upcoming decades will experience so much turmoil and changes, because of the climate crisis and (un)expected shocks, that we simply cannot afford resilient energy systems. We need energy systems that evolve over time, through modifying their structure and learning through shocks. And this is particularly important in energy transitions. Decarbonisations means changing energy systems&rsquo; structure, not preserving it. Coming back to the fossil gas example in Europe: resilience means having more import routes but keeping the energy system (or fossil gas dependency) alive. Adaptability means adapting the energy system, by further accelerating energy transitions, for example by moving towards renewable energies. These are two very different strategies!</span></p>
<h2><strong>Adaptability AND resilience</strong></h2>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Moving from idealism to reality, it is quite reasonable to not move from one extreme (resilience only) to the other (adaptability only), because resilience is, despite its shortcomings, still something that we need in energy systems. And many actions that may contribute to resilience may also make us more adaptable! For example, the European Commission employed a combination of both actions through its </span><a href="https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/priorities-2019-2024/european-green-deal/repowereu-affordable-secure-and-sustainable-energy-europe_en"><span style="font-weight: 400;">REPowerEU</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> package, by increasing resilience through diversifying gas imports and adaptation by accelerating the deployment of renewables. This would satisfy the short-term needs of the current system (resilience), and the medium- and long-term needs of transforming towards a new one (adaptability). Trying to find such a balanced response is a reasonable approach to most of the shocks, and REPowerEU may serve as a best-case example of how to balance out both needs.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Given the critical need to swiftly decarbonise our energy systems, it is incremental that we don&rsquo;t overdo it with our responses to external shocks by creating an incredibly resilient global energy system because of our learnings of the past years. This energy system has failed us in the past, present, and will do so in the future, if we don&rsquo;t adapt it to the changing shocks and needs. My call to action is, therefore, to be cautious when advocating for resilient energy systems, because this may lock us in our journey of failure on which we are currently in. Let&rsquo;s rather focus on how to create adaptable energy systems, which are resilient too (and efficient).</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><em>Future Thought Leaders is a democratic space presenting the thoughts and opinions of rising Sustainability &amp; Energy writers, their opinions do not necessarily represent those of illuminem.</em></span></p>

Resilience as the new obstacle for energy transitions?

Far too often, youth engagement happens only at the surface level to create an image of youth participation — a phenomenon known as ‘youth-washing’

<p>Youth engagement has been gaining relevance over the past few years. Especially in energy and climate discourses, the number of youth programmes, events, or trainings has increased exponentially. While these are just a few of the many forms youth engagement can take, they all try to achieve one thing: to include the youth in conversations about our energy futures. But why should we include the youth in the first place? To what extent can the current approach deliver proper engagements? And how could youth engagement happen in the future?</p>
<h2>We have a lot of young people&hellip;</h2>
<p>Around 50% of the world&rsquo;s population is below the age of 30 - four billion people, full of ambition, ideas, and passion. Many of today&rsquo;s decisions, especially in climate and energy-related fields, will have a profound influence on the live(lihood)s of those four billion living on the planet today. One must only read a few pages of the IPCC report to understand the catastrophes that wait for us if we don&rsquo;t manage to drastically reduce our emissions. But one must also read successful development case studies to draw hope that we can improve communities&rsquo; lives while preserving or even restoring nature.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Two extreme storylines with many more potential futures in between which solely depend on the decisions we take today. Whether a young person in Southern Spain will need to flee the country because the living conditions have become unbearable due to continuous heat waves or whether they can raise their children in their hometown depends to a large extent on the &lsquo;great&rsquo; decisions of today. And these decisions are currently not made by them but made to them.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Especially in decisions that have an impact on the generations to come, youth representation still lags behind. A recent UN report highlighted that only 2.6% of parliamentarians worldwide are below the age of 30, meaning that young people&rsquo;s voices in decision-making are clearly underrepresented. It is not that giving the youth a seat at the table automatically leads to different or better results, but it enhances the decision-making process and increases its outcomes&rsquo; validity. Therefore, youth engagement leads to more informed, inclusive, and valid decision-making.</p>
<p><strong>Figure 1.</strong> Demography of the world population (Our World in Data). Young people take up a major share of the world&rsquo;s population and the majority will live until the late 21st century.</p>
<p><img style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" src="https://illuminem.b-cdn.net/articlebody/127ae3f4798f7fbe1299969186c631c3fbe27f10.jpg?" alt="Demography of the world population" /></p>
<h2><strong>Where are we right now?</strong></h2>
<p>While youth engagement can lead to a more inclusive decision-making process, the youth still doesn&rsquo;t have a seat at the table. Youth voices are underrepresented at every level of decision making which causes huge frustration and anger among young people. This is a very natural and logical response, particularly when it comes to decisions that will primarily affect them - decisions that are made to them. Wouldn&rsquo;t you also be enraged if you wouldn&rsquo;t have a say about your future?&nbsp;</p>
<p>Because of that, various protest and youth-led movements have emerged in the past years - for example, Fridays For Future or SDG7 Youth Constituency - to fight not only for a more sustainable planet but also for better inclusion of young voices in decision-making. It is only because of the work of those brave pioneers that we can now see the emergence of this crucial topic of youth engagement. Most of the conferences that I attend have a special youth track in their programme and they try to put youth representatives on the stage. Additionally, many organisations have programmes tailored towards young people so that they can build capacities, network, and get the opportunity to influence decisions within organisations. Those programmes include the Future Energy Leaders Programme at World Energy Council and the Youthwise Programme of the OECD.&nbsp;</p>
<p>While giving young people a platform and stage is indeed a first good step towards proper youth representation and engagement, we are still very far from reaching our goals. Unfortunately, youth engagement today far too often happens at the surface level, to create the image of youth engagement in an organisation or (policy) process only to &lsquo;youth-wash&rsquo; the outcomes. This tokenisation of young people is not only disrespectful towards youth but also leads to mistrust and disappointment among young people. Even worse, even if young people&rsquo;s voices get acknowledged in a forum, their voices are usually not representative of all young people. Youth engagement to this date is usually only something for a privileged minority. Most of the work is done in our free time, next to studies or other obligations, meaning that you are only able to represent youth when you are privileged youth. And this inherently creates biases and issues.</p>
<p>Although there are a lot of organisations that are genuinely interested to engage with young people, we still have a long way to go for proper and meaningful youth engagement. We need to make sure to increase our efforts and try to think of new forms of partnerships, representations, or inclusion so that we can ensure that youth voices are heard. But what are potential avenues of future youth engagement?&nbsp;</p>
<h2><strong>The way forward</strong></h2>
<p>I am very hopeful that youth engagement will only accelerate in the upcoming years and become more professional, impactful, and institutional, for example through more formal youth engagement at organisational and decision-making levels and through more inclusive representation. This also requires empowering young people to get active in their cause and supporting them in their ambitions. Furthermore, I am convinced that the benefits of youth engagement in topics such as climate and energy can and will also be seen in other sectors, such as health or law.&nbsp;</p>
<p>The establishment of the United Nations Youth Office on 12 September 2022 (A/RES/76/306) is one step in the right direction. This body shall support youth engagement in the UN on different levels, and also oversee the implementation of youth strategies. To maximise the impact of this office, there needs to be a proper follow-up on the UN and on national levels through mainstreaming youth engagement. One potential follow-up is capacity building by providing young people with the education and tools they need to understand the clean energy transition and how to get active, for example through widely available and accessible trainings. The second is by enabling young people to innovate and explore their own ideas. Young people are a source of innovation and it should be the government&rsquo;s responsibility to enable them to innovate.</p>
<p>Young people also need to have the financial means to innovate and push for a clean energy transition. Governments have to support young people financially, for example through start-up financing, so that they can focus on transforming the world for the better. And lastly, governments have to involve young people in decision-making processes. Governments have to include young people in decision-making and give them the authority and power to push for change, for example mainstreaming youth involvement in decision-making processes by introducing mandatory youth quotas.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Finally, while youth engagement is indeed an important topic, it is only one small part of the wider nexus of intergenerational conversations. By enabling young people to shape conversations, the need and cause for intergenerational approaches will only increase. This will be the next milestone for truly inclusive energy conversations, by having proper representation of all generations, not only &lsquo;older&rsquo; ones. Younger generations can learn from the experiences of the older ones, and older ones can learn about new approaches from the younger ones. Only by acting collectively through generational collaboration will we be able to tackle societal problems such as energy transformations. Truly inclusive and intergenerational energy conversations are the foundation of that, to enable the creation of a future-proof energy system, tailored towards human needs.</p>
<p>What are your thoughts on intergenerational collaboration? And do you have best practice examples from your community?</p>
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<p><em>Future Thought Leaders is a democratic space presenting the thoughts and opinions of rising Sustainability &amp; Energy writers, their opinions do not necessarily represent those of illuminem.</em></p>
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Ivo Wakounig

Ivo Wakounig

Resilience as the new obstacle for energy transitions?

From youthwashing to meaningful youth engagement

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