Countries in Asia and the Pacific region are experiencing adverse impacts of climate extremes, including increasing incidence of extreme heat, droughts, heavy rains, and rising sea levels. These impacts are already affecting the performance of energy infrastructure and the services they provide to businesses and communities. This means that energy systems built over the next decades will operate under very different climate conditions to today, and decisions made today to invest in energy systems can either lock-in development patterns for decades or steer development in resilient directions. In other words, climate change will fundamentally alter the context in which energy systems are planned, financed, designed, implemented, and operated, and these impacts are to be further exacerbated in the future due to increasing interconnectivity of our investment operations.

Rapidly changing climate change landscape is making asset-focused approaches through conventional climate proofing measures no longer sufficient. Robust understanding of multi-hazard and unprecedent climate risks will be a starting line for investment decisions for energy systems, which is critical for strengthening societal resilience, especially in terms of lives, health, and livelihood of the poor and vulnerable.