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The United States has again warned it could withdraw from the International Energy Agency (IEA), with Washington pushing the agency to abandon its net-zero emissions agenda within the next year.
Speaking on Thursday at the close of the IEA’s ministerial meeting in Paris, Energy Secretary Chris Wright argued that the 52-year-old organisation should refocus on its original mandate of safeguarding global energy security.
He criticised the agency for expanding its priorities to include climate targets, particularly the goal of achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.
According to him, the United States intends to apply significant diplomatic pressure to persuade the IEA to shift away from that direction in the near term.
“The US will use all the pressure we have to get the IEA to eventually, in the next year or so, move away from this agenda.”
Wright warned that if the agency fails to realign with what he described as its core mission, ensuring energy security, access, and transparency, the US may reconsider its membership.
He indicated that Washington would be prepared to leave the body if it did not return to those foundational objectives.
“But if the IEA is not able to bring itself back to focusing on the mission of energy honesty, energy access and energy security, then sadly we would become an ex-member of the IEA,”
The IEA was established in the aftermath of the 1973 oil crisis to coordinate collective responses to major disruptions in oil supply.
