The energy quest: elevating the Quad’s role in the Indo-Pacific
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Key points
- Energy security remains an ongoing challenge in the face of escalating geopolitical tensions and the emergence of inward-focused domestic industrial policies.
- Renewables are set to assume an increasingly prominent role as the Quad economies position themselves for energy transitions and strive for low-carbon, resilient growth.
- The extraction and processing of critical minerals, essential for facilitating a green energy transition, exhibit significant geographical concentration, elevating the vulnerabilities within the energy landscape.
- The growing digitisation of the energy sector is undeniably crucial; however, it also exposes the sector to increasing security and privacy risks.
Policy recommendations
- The Quad should encourage technology co-development and transfer to mitigate the potential hazards of supply chain monopolisation and future disruptions. Incorporating digital resilience into both technology research and development initiatives will be critical.
- The Quad should strengthen sector-specific partnerships aimed at harnessing synergies and enhancing clean energy capacity, production, and distribution.
- The Quad should strive to extend the scope of the Quad Plus framework to facilitate synergies and avoid being overshadowed by conflicting and competitive actors in the Indo-Pacific region.
- The Quad should aim to harmonise global green policies and uphold the principles of equity and justice as central tenets of the just energy transition agenda.
About the series
This paper has been written for the Quad Tech Network Dialogue, as part of the Quad Tech Network (QTN) initiative. QTN is an initiative of the NSC, delivered with support from the Australian Government. It aims to establish and deepen academic and official networks linking the Quad nations – Australia, India, Japan, and the United States – in relation to the most pressing technology issues affecting the future security and prosperity of the Indo-Pacific.
