Energy shown by man climbing to escape (5)
I believe the answer is:
evade
'escape' is the definition.
(evading is a kind of escaping)
'energy shown by man climbing' is the wordplay.
'energy' becomes 'e' (physics symbol as in E=mc2).
'shown by' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'man' becomes 'dave' (I've seen this before).
'climbing' is a reversal indicator (in a down clue, letters climb up).
'e'+'dave'='edave'
'edave' reversed gives 'EVADE'.
'to' is the link.
(Other definitions for evade that I've seen before include "Dodge, steer clear of" , "Get round" , "Escape (esp. by guile)" , "Dodge or equivocate" , "Shirk" .)