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The lessons of the energy crisis following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have not been fully learned, the International Energy Agency has said, as more than 60 global leaders are set to arrive in London for discussions on energy security.
Sir Keir Starmer, the UK prime minister, will this week host Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, as well as ministers from the US, Japan, France, Germany and India, and the heads of dozens of energy companies, for a two-day summit on how to ensure resilient supplies of energy in a volatile global market.
Referring to the crisis caused by the loss of Russian pipeline gas from Europe and the rush to source alternative supplies of energy, Fatih Birol, the head of the IEA, said he thought the “lessons from Ukraine have not yet been fully understood”.
Birol, who organised the summit jointly with the UK government, added that there were “three golden rules” for energy security: a diversification of energy supplies, enough political predictability to allow companies to make huge long-term investments, and global co-operation.
By contrast, Europe remains dependent on imported gas, there have been widespread changes to energy subsidies and regulations in both Europe and the US, and the trade war unleashed by US President Donald Trump is likely to reduce, rather than enhance, co-operation.
Birol said the trade war had caused “uncertainty which will affect demand for oil and gas for some time to come”.
Meanwhile, the risks to energy supplies are proliferating, including the wars in Europe and the Middle East, extreme weather, attacks on undersea cables, cyber attacks and more. “There are traditional risks and emerging risks and these have to be more in the international debate,” he said.
Birol highlighted the balance of summit attendees from fossil fuel companies, which have recently started to invoke the need for energy security as a justification for stepping up oil and gas exploration, and from renewable energy specialists. Shell, BP, ExxonMobil, TotalEnergies, Eni and Equinor will all attend, alongside the wind energy companies Ørsted and Vestas, and utilities EDF, Enel, Octopus and Iberdrola.
“We are going to look at traditional energy security risks, such as [the loss] of oil and gas, but also emerging risks such as supply chain [disruption] and [the loss of] critical minerals,” said Birol.
Asked if the UK should reverse its decision not to issue any new exploration licences for oil and gas in the North Sea, Birol said that was “completely up to the UK government and the UK industry to decide whether or not it is a profitable investment and whether it will really improve energy security in the short and the long term”.
One notable absence at the summit will be China. “We invited China, but unfortunately they were not able to accept due to calendar reasons,” said Birol. “We wish everybody was at the table, but the countries attending the meeting make up three-quarters of the world’s GDP, which in my view is not bad at all.”
