PLEA Network

19 February, Politico: US succeeds in erasing climate from global energy body’s priorities. Trump’s energy chief had threatened to leave the International Energy Agency if it continued to focus on climate. The United States has succeeded in removing climate change from the main priorities of the International Energy Agency, following a tense ministerial meeting in Paris that reflected a dramatic shift in political mood around the clean energy transition. In the chair’s summary released at the end of the two-day meeting, addressing climate change is not listed among the agency’s priorities. Instead, the document focuses on energy security, resilience, critical minerals and electricity systems. The development, which comes after the U.S. threatened to leave the agency if it continued to focus on climate change, is a remarkable turnaround from the last ministerial two years ago, when addressing the climate crisis and phasing out fossil fuels was named as the IEA’s top priority. 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.” Read more here