On the second day of the World Summit on the Future of Energy Security in London on Friday 25 April, the Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), Fatih Birol, firmly reiterated that fossil fuels still have a role to play in the years to come – not least to ensure the security of supply of import-dependent regions such as Europe.
“Whatever the scenario, we can see that oil and gas will contribute at different levels to the energy mix. We will therefore continue to examine the energy security issues associated with these fossil fuels”, said Mr Birol.
He added, however, that the IEA would be paying more attention in the coming years “to emerging energy security risks”, such as access to critical metals and the diversification of their supply chains, currently dominated by China.
As far as Europe is concerned, Tim Gould, Chief Energy Economist at the IEA, explained to Agence Europe that for the EU, which depends on fuel imports, there is a desire to combine “its intention to put in place a transitional energy system and its energy security imperatives”.
More LNG supplies in the future. The day before, on the first day of the Summit, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, declared that imports of American liquefied natural gas (LNG) remained of strategic importance to the EU (see EUROPE 13627/1).
On this point, Mr Gould does indeed believe that over the next few years there will be more gas supplies on the market, particularly in the form of LNG from Qatar, but also from the United States, “which we believe will ease the tensions that we continue to see in the gas markets today”.
He also believes that these new supplies will give Europe “room for manoeuvre” to achieve its gas import targets, in particular to break away completely from its remaining dependence on Russian gas.
The need to meet the world’s growing demand for energy. More generally, the IEA’s very strong affirmation of the major role of gas and oil in the years ahead raises the question of whether it wishes to avoid upsetting the fossil fuel exporting countries, a dozen of which were represented at the Summit, including the United States and Iraq.
For Tim Gould, it is legitimate to recognise the importance of oil and gas, given that “we are starting from a system where we are not yet in a position to meet growing energy needs exclusively from non-fossil energy sources”.
“We need to recognise this and think carefully with policymakers about how to seize opportunities to move to a safer and more sustainable system”, he continued.
For example, the IEA recently analysed that in 2024, natural gas accounted for a significant 28% of the growth in global energy supply (compared with 38% for renewables, 15% for coal, 11% for oil and 8% for nuclear).
Importance of cooperation, despite contrasting interests. Asked at a press conference about the outcome of the Summit, Ed Miliband, the UK Secretary of State for Energy Security and Carbon Neutrality, who co-chaired the event, said he was very satisfied with the discussions held. “This is an unprecedented event, bringing together 60 countries for the first time in this context. It was a question of establishing a dialogue, cooperating and coming together to work on common solutions”, he reiterated.
He did, however, acknowledge “different interests” with the United States, which reaffirmed at the Summit that it wanted to focus on increased exploitation of its fossil resources and renege on the previous administration’s climate commitments.
“Part of our job as governments is to find common ground”, explained Mr Miliband, pointing out that the United States, like the United Kingdom, was interested in a “nuclear energy renaissance”.
At a time when the positions of the various countries around the table remain nuanced and the world is becoming geopolitically fragmented, the legitimacy of an agency such as the IEA to make progress towards global decarbonisation may be called into question.
On the contrary, Executive Director Fatih Birol wanted to convey the message that, at the Summit, “all governments, IEA members and partners recognised the Agency’s essential role in energy security issues”. (Original version in French by Pauline Denys)