(Bloomberg) – The U.S. may depart the International Energy Agency without changes to forecasting that Republicans have criticized as unrealistically green, President Donald Trump’s energy chief said.
IEA Director Fatih Birol
“We will do one of two things: we will reform the way the IEA operates or we will withdraw,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright said during an interview Tuesday. “My strong preference is to reform it.”
The Paris-based IEA, established in response to the 1970s oil crisis to enhance energy security, stirred controversy in recent years as long-term forecasts began to factor in more active government policies to shift away from fossil fuels. The agency has predicted that global oil demand will plateau this decade as electric-vehicle fleets expand and other measures are adopted to reduce emissions and combat climate change.
“That’s just total nonsense,” Wright said on the sidelines of the Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. He added he’s been in a dialog with the Fatih Birol, the IEA’s executive director.
The IEA didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. In the past, it has defended its forecasting and said in a March 2024 statement that its scenarios “are built on different underlying assumptions about how the energy system might evolve over time.”
Wright’s criticism of the agency that gets millions of dollars in U.S. funding is in line with Trump’s broader pro-fossil fuels thrust, and his skepticism about climate change and some environmental measures adopted under previous administrations.
The energy group came under fire in the U.S. last year from critics such as Senator John Barrasso, a Wyoming Republican, who said the IEA has become an “energy transition cheerleader” and that its modeling of long-term energy demand was skewed and “no longer provides policymakers with balanced assessments of energy and climate proposals.”
