By Noah Fritzhand, Lily Boland, and Caroline Baxter
Introduction
In mid February 2025, staff from the Council on Strategic Risks (CSR)’s Center for Climate and Security (CCS) and Converging Risks Lab (CRL) traveled to Tokyo, Japan to launch a new community of practice on the benefits of renewable energy for Japan’s national security, building on work on this topic since summer 2023, and furthering relationships forged through other projects since 2016. Named The Renewable Energy is National Security (RENS) Community of Practice, the group continues the work of a CSR tabletop exercise (TTX) hosted in Tokyo in 2024 on the national security imperatives of Japan’s renewable energy transition.
Initial findings from the TTX showed that in addition to reducing emissions, accelerating the transition to renewable energy would also minimize Japan’s vulnerability to oil price shocks and increase resilience to natural hazards and conflict, thereby increasing the overall resilience of Japan’s national security. To this end, the RENS Community of Practice aims to address how accelerating Japan’s transition to renewable energy can strengthen its national security in a manner that advances both climate and energy resilience goals.
This expert group—composed of over 30 Japanese government officials from the a number of Ministries, such as Defense and Foreign Affairs; Ministry-affiliated think tanks; leaders of Japanese NGOs; and other subject matter experts from non-government research institutions and academia—will provide crucial insights into the national security dynamics of Japan’s renewable energy transition and policy recommendations for the Japanese government to accelerate progress towards clean energy in view of its latest 7th Strategic Energy Plan.
To commence the community of practice, RENS members gathered in Tokyo at the International House of Japan for a day-long, two-part workshop. Following keynote remarks from the Minister Counselor for Political Affairs at the United States Embassy in Tokyo, Aaron Snipe, the RENS community engaged in structured discussions identifying the core complexities underpinning Japan’s transition to renewable energy, and the role renewables play in adding resilience to Japan’s national security. Former US Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Installations, Energy and Environment, Paul Farnan, and former US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Environment & Energy Resilience, Richard Kidd, led several panel discussions providing insights based on their experience working on the US’ energy transition at the Department of Defense (DOD).