Interconnected Sectors and Societal Insecurity: The Missing Link between Energy Transition and Cybersecurity

Climate mitigation efforts require a transition to a low carbon economy, this leads to electrification of society and the economy, including sectors that previously have been independent of the electricity grid, such as transport. Simultaneously, technological development have led to automatization, for example telecommunication, trains and planes. This creates interconnected sectors that rely on the same infrastructure technologies. While it may be valuable to enhance the capacity of the energy sector, mainly electricity, it also risks including further societal insecurities. New ways of destabilising societies stemming from an increase in hybrid threats leave critical infrastructure companies open as targets for cyber-attacks, and as a means to destabilise society overall. Consequently, the interconnected sectors leave not only the infrastructure vulnerable but also make society insecure. Indeed, increased reliance on information systems and electrification results in vulnerability, where a breakdown in the electricity grid can create a total blackout of individual companies, the economy and society in general. In other words, the transition to a low carbon economy requires us to redefine critical infrastructure and bring different discourses together to understand how to approach these new forms of societal insecurities. This article explores the clashes between the discourses of energy transition in relation to climate change and discourses of securitization of critical infrastructure. Both discourses share a common logic of security. The discourse of energy transition in relation to climate change comes from an initial securitization of the climate where the means to engage with the increasing threat from climate change are articulated through transition in energy supply and use of technology. At the same time, the securitization of critical infrastructure sees new energy transition as one of threats rather than means to engage with new security issues. Using securitization theory, this article examines how a lack of awareness of the outcome between both discourses will lead to new forms of societal insecurity. Moreover, the article argues that there need to be more interactions between these discourses in order to increase societal security.