A new report published November 5 by the International Energy Agency (IEA) appears to contain multiple concessions to pressure applied by U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright in July. In a July 15 interview with Bloomberg, Sec. Wright threatened to suspend U.S. funding to the agency if it failed to reform recent forecasting methods which have given critics ammunition to accuse its findings of being politicized.
Wright’s IEA Concerns Center On Modeling
“We will do one of two things,” Wright said at the time. “We will reform the way the IEA operates, or we will withdraw.” He expressed a preference for maintaining U.S. membership as an IEA funder, saying, “My strong preference is to reform it.” It is a threat which carries great weight given that IEA’s support is derived from contributions of 49 subscribing nations, and the U.S. funded 18% its most recent budget.
The controversy centered on IEA’s use of what it calls its “Announced Pledges Scenario (APS).” The APS is an aspirational scenario which the agency says “models a future for the energy system in which all national energy and climate targets – such as countries’ nationally determined contributions – are achieved in full and on time.”
The APS was implemented in 2021, when IEA abandoned its original role of generating fact-based data and analyses about the global energy situation, adopting an advocacy role for the energy transition. It displaced the “Current Policies Scenario (CPS)” used by the agency as its main forecasting model before 2021 in the creation of its annual World Energy Outlook (WEO). The emphasis on the APS formed the basis of IEA’s repeated projections of the world reaching Peak Oil Demand before 2030, a conclusion which has been widely panned as unrealistic by other, competing forecasting entities.
Wright had criticized the agency’s Peak Oil prediction in an interview in late June, calling it “nonsensical.” Pointing to the fact that billions of people living in developing nations strive to enjoy the same level of energy security enjoyed by the billion or so who live in developed, OECD nations, Wright criticized the IEA for adopting a stance which would deny them that ability. “They’re just saying to those 7 billion people, a billion of us are going to keep living these well-energized lives, but you guys, you’ve got to stay where you are,” he said.
IEA Appears To Throw In The Advocacy Towel
The IEA’s November 5 report, which lays out the scenarios used to create its 2025 WEO, appears to concede to Wright’s demand that it abandon its advocacy role and return to the producer of reality-based analyses.
First, the agency states it will restore the CPS to its previous status as one of its two main exploratory scenarios. Interestingly, the report makes no mention of Wright, attributing the shift to other factors.
“The CPS was a regular feature of the International Energy Agency’s suite of scenarios until the WEO-2020, when it was discontinued amid turmoil in energy markets and rapid changes in the policy landscape during the Covid‑19 pandemic,” IEA says. “Now that the world has passed through the pandemic and the global energy crisis, there is merit in revisiting the CPS.”
Two paragraphs later, IEA says it will eliminate the APS, again consistent with the pressure applied by Wright and the Trump administration. But again, the agency attributes the shift to other, unrelated factors, saying, “many countries are yet to announce or update their targets, and an update to the APS would give only a partial picture of the implications for energy and emissions.”
Another Apparent IEA Narrative Shift
One more aspect of the IEA’s November 5 report bears mentioning here. That lies in the fact that a full reading of it reveals no mention of either wind, solar, or electric vehicles. Given that these technologies have been advanced as the favored alternatives to oil, natural gas, and coal in this century, enjoying heavy subsidies from governments and trillions of dollars in public and private investments, this omission seems extraordinary.
Whatever the true drivers behind these sudden shifts in narrative and substance by IEA may be, there is no denying they are fully consistent with the wishes expressed by Wright in July. The shifts are also likely to result in continued U.S. monetary support for the IEA and its mission. It all seems to add up to Wright and the Trump administration having their way at the IEA.
