US energy chief says International Energy Agency must drop focus on climate change

PARIS – US Energy Secretary Chris Wright urged the International Energy Agency (IEA) on Feb 18 to abandon its work on climate change and focus instead on its founding mission.

Mr Wright threatened in 2025 to pull the US out of the IEA – which was founded to coordinate responses to major disruptions of supplies after the 1973 oil crisis – unless it reformed the way it operates.

The IEA was created “to focus on energy security”, Mr Wright said on Feb 18 at a ministerial meeting of the agency in Paris.

“That mission is beyond critical, and I’m here to plead to all the members (of the IEA) that we need to keep the focus of the IEA on this absolutely life-changing, world-changing mission of energy security,” the former fracking magnate said.

He said he wanted to get support from “all the nations in this noble organisation to work with us, to push the IEA to drop the climate. That’s political stuff”.

Speaking earlier, IEA executive director Fatih Birol insisted that the Paris-based agency was “data-driven”.

“We are a non-political organisation,” he added.

The IEA produces monthly reports on oil demand and supply, as well as annual world energy outlooks that include data on the growth of solar and wind energy, among other analyses.

Mr Wright praised Mr Birol for reinserting a scenario that looked at the growth of oil and gas demand – which had been dropped from the reports in 2020 – in the annual outlook in November.

In an interview with AFP on Feb 17, Mr Wright said the IEA has “made some first steps” to reform, but still has “a long way to go”.

But the US energy chief also pressed on with his criticism, telling reporters before the start of the meetings on Feb 18: “The IEA has been infected with sort of a climate cult that’s about energy subtraction.”

‘Age of electricity unstoppable’

US President Donald Trump, who has called human-driven global warming a hoax, has pulled the US out of the UN’s bedrock climate treaty and, last week,

dismantled the legal basis for US climate rules

.

Mr Wright used his time in Paris to challenge the consensus on climate science. “This belief that climate change is urgent, it’s causing catastrophic damage today, and we have to drop everything and focus everything on that – I can tell you nothing, nothing in the climate data supports that,” he said.

The European Union’s climate monitor, however, says the last three years have been the hottest globally on record, driven by rising greenhouse gas emissions that are causing global warming.

Experts warn that rising global temperatures are bringing hotter summers, more frequent flooding, stronger storms and increasingly devastating wildfires and droughts.

In a sign that not all nations agree with Mr Wright, British energy secretary Ed Miliband announced that Britain would contribute a further £12 million (S$20.5 million) to the IEA’s Clean Energy Transitions Programme.

“The age of electricity is unstoppable,” Mr Miliband said.

For many countries, he added, “clean energy is the most secure and affordable way to meet this rising demand over the long term”.

He praised the IEA and Mr Birol, saying: “You treat all members equally and fairly.” AFP