In her address, she covered two types of climate and cyber risks – the cascading and compound risks. There are complex interactions between these risks, and they can bring about cyber-physical infrastructure damage, aggravate cybersecurity vulnerabilities, and cause broader harms to society, economy, human and national security, as well as to cyber-physical and natural ecosystems.

Moreover, Piret Pernik outlined key global and international approaches, focusing on international organisations in preventing and mitigating the converging cyber and climate risks. She concluded that even though many useful best practice and international frameworks have been developed in recent years, much more targeted collaboration is needed across all stakeholders (a whole-of-society approach) and at different levels (such as local, regional, national, and global).

In conclusion, she recommended policymakers and stakeholders to:

• integrate environmental security and cybersecurity comprehensively into legislative acts, strategies, policies, and implementation plans;
• cross-fertilize expertise between siloed technical and operational communities;
• improve local, regional, national, international, inter-agency, cross-sectoral, and cross-border collaboration and information sharing;
• develop comprehensive (versus sector-specific) risk assessments in order to help identify cross-sectoral and cross-border threats;
• develop multi-hazard (man-made and natural) scenarios, risk management frameworks and worst case scenarios;
• include the defence sector, defence industry, and law enforcement, as well as strengthen public-private-partnerships and engage local communities in decision-making processes.