The Case for Climate-Risk Analytics in Registry Policy

As the climate crisis intensifies and environmental resilience becomes a central consideration across global industries, domain name registries are beginning to recognize their unique position within digital infrastructure—and their responsibility to integrate climate-risk analytics into policy and operations. While the domain name system has traditionally been governed by principles of stability, neutrality, and minimal technical interference, the growing influence of ESG frameworks, sustainable ICT standards, and the climate disclosure landscape is making environmental risk a material concern for registry operators and policy architects. The time has come for climate-risk analytics to be treated not as an optional feature of corporate reporting, but as a core element of registry policy design in the forthcoming round of gTLDs.

At its core, a registry is a nexus of digital addressability, a platform upon which identity, information, and commerce depend. The physical and organizational infrastructure behind a registry—including its DNS servers, registrar channels, data centers, backend service providers, and policy frameworks—is inherently exposed to climate-related threats. These range from acute physical hazards, such as flooding or wildfire disruptions to key network locations, to chronic systemic issues, like water scarcity impacting data center cooling or power grid instability driven by heat waves. The consequences of climate-induced service interruptions to the domain name system can be severe, especially for mission-critical TLDs serving financial institutions, public utilities, health networks, or emergency response systems.

Integrating climate-risk analytics into registry operations begins with modeling physical and transitional risks across the supply and connectivity chains that support the TLD. This includes evaluating the geographic vulnerability of DNS nodes, data hosting environments, and registrar hubs to climate hazards using GIS tools and predictive climate modeling frameworks. For example, a registry operating authoritative name servers in low-lying coastal regions may need to implement redundancy protocols or invest in edge-based mitigation strategies to maintain uptime during storm surges or sea-level rise events. Additionally, registries should assess their energy procurement sources and cooling technologies through a climate lens, understanding how shifting energy regulations or carbon pricing schemes could impact operational costs and reliability over time.

From a policy standpoint, registries applying in the next gTLD round have the opportunity to build climate resilience into their registry agreements, public interest commitments, and registry-registrar policies. This could take the form of mandatory climate-risk disclosures in annual reports, integration of climate threat modeling in business continuity plans, or requirements for backend providers to meet carbon intensity benchmarks or renewable energy usage thresholds. Just as ICANN mandates DNSSEC implementation and uptime SLAs to ensure technical trust, it could extend those expectations to environmental risk disclosures or climate-adaptive infrastructure standards, especially for TLDs targeting public-sector, sustainability, or infrastructure verticals.

More proactively, climate-risk analytics can inform domain allocation policy itself. Registries serving climate-sensitive sectors—such as .agriculture, .infrastructure, .resilience, or .greenenergy—could be designed with eligibility rules or usage commitments that support climate adaptation. For instance, registrants under a future .climateadaptation TLD might be required to publish open data on emissions mitigation or resilience projects as part of their domain terms of service. A registry could also use climate-risk data to prioritize community or nonprofit registrants in regions disproportionately affected by climate change, offering subsidized registration or technical support for local information portals, early warning systems, or disaster recovery networks.

For gTLDs affiliated with governments, municipalities, or critical infrastructure sectors, the integration of climate analytics into registry policy offers a public value dimension. A .city or .region TLD, for example, could incorporate municipal climate risk maps into its domain issuance policies, enabling urban planners and local organizations to segment their digital resources according to flood zones, energy risk corridors, or vulnerable populations. Such registries could become platforms for digital twins of cities’ climate models, where domain names reflect spatial awareness and policy zones, fostering a new type of digital-civic infrastructure that links DNS logic to real-world resilience goals.

Investor expectations further support the case for embedding climate-risk frameworks into registry operations. Financial markets are increasingly assessing companies—including digital infrastructure providers—based on climate scenario analysis, scope 1–3 emissions reporting, and exposure to stranded assets. A registry with no climate-risk protocols may face capital access constraints or reputational vulnerability, particularly if operating a high-profile or mission-driven TLD. On the other hand, climate-forward registries may attract impact investment, ESG-aligned financing, or public-private partnerships that support long-term infrastructure upgrades, sustainable cloud integration, or community-focused innovation grants tied to domain adoption.

There is also a security and stability dimension. As climate risks amplify social and geopolitical volatility, domain name abuse linked to climate misinformation, disaster-related scams, and social unrest becomes a rising concern. Registry policies informed by climate context can support more adaptive and real-time abuse mitigation strategies. For example, during extreme weather events, registries could collaborate with civil defense authorities and CERTs to temporarily freeze suspicious domain updates, fast-track verified emergency content, or redirect high-risk traffic through trusted information hubs. These capabilities would rely on a registry’s ability to correlate environmental data streams with DNS activity, necessitating new data partnerships and analytic capacity.

In operationalizing this vision, registries need not start from scratch. A growing body of frameworks and tools—from the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) to the Climate Risk and Adaptation Framework from the UNEP Finance Initiative—can be adapted to DNS sector specifics. Industry associations, including the Internet Infrastructure Coalition (i2Coalition) and DNS-OARC, can help standardize risk categories, reporting templates, and resilience best practices. Climate-risk analytics providers can supply custom datasets, probabilistic models, and decision support systems tailored to the registry layer. What’s needed is the strategic intent to integrate these insights into ICANN’s procedural structures and to incentivize registries to prioritize climate as part of their accountability profile.

Ultimately, the integration of climate-risk analytics into registry policy is not only a matter of foresight but of fiduciary duty. Domain name registries are custodians of digital trust and continuity. As the climate crisis redefines infrastructure norms across sectors, registries that fail to incorporate environmental risk into their design and governance will face both functional vulnerabilities and legitimacy gaps. Those that lead with climate-conscious frameworks, data-informed resilience, and adaptive operational strategies will not only safeguard their TLDs but also set a precedent for how digital infrastructure can align with the ecological realities of the twenty-first century. The next round of gTLDs is not just a naming opportunity—it is a chance to build a DNS layer that is climate-resilient by design.

As the climate crisis intensifies and environmental resilience becomes a central consideration across global industries, domain name registries are beginning to recognize their unique position within digital infrastructure—and their responsibility to integrate climate-risk analytics into policy and operations. While the domain name system has traditionally been governed by principles of stability, neutrality, and minimal technical…