Unusually, there was no joint communique from the ministers at the end of this week’s meeting. The chair’s summary mentioned climate change just once, saying “a large majority of ministers stressed the importance of the energy transition to combat climate change and highlighted the global transition to net zero emissions in line with COP28 outcomes.”
Despite that line, climate change was not highlighted as a priority in the closing remarks and was barely mentioned during the final press conference, reflecting the power of the U.S., the group’s richest member which contributes around 14 percent of the agency’s funding.
U.S. President Donald Trump has called climate change a “hoax” and efforts to address it a “scam.” Since coming to office just over a year ago, he has taken a sledgehammer to domestic U.S. climate policies, withdrawn from international climate bodies, attempted to stall renewable projects, and promoted the global expansion of fossil fuels production — including through a military intervention in Venezuela.
During the talks in Paris, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright had urged the agency to drop its net-zero scenario modeling and refocus on traditional energy security, warning that the U.S. could reconsider its membership if the IEA did not change course.
During the closing press conference, IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol sidestepped questions about whether Washington had pushed to dilute climate language.
Asked directly about the agency’s net-zero scenario, he noted that the latest World Energy Outlook still includes one, but declined to say whether it would appear in future outlooks.
Dutch Climate Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Sophie Hermans, who chaired the meeting, defended the outcome, arguing that each ministerial reflects its “own geopolitical situation.”
“And I think the last thing we should do is compare today’s chair summary with the summary of two years ago, because so much has changed,” she told reporters.