GREEN REVANCHISM
US energy chief says IEA must ‘drop’ focus on climate change
By AFP
February 18, 2026
US Energy Secretary Chris Wright said the IEA had been 'infected' by a 'climate cult' - Copyright AFP/File Juan BARRETO
Laurent THOMET
US Energy Secretary Chris Wright urged the International Energy Agency on Wednesday to abandon its work on climate change and focus instead on its founding mission.
Wright threatened last year to pull the United States out of the IEA — which was founded to coordinate responses to major disruptions of supplies after the 1973 oil crisis — unless it reformed the way it operates.
The IEA was created “to focus on energy security”, Wright said on Wednesday at a ministerial meeting of the agency in Paris.
“That mission is beyond critical and I’m here to plead to all the members (of the IEA) that we need to keep the focus of the IEA on this absolutely life-changing, world-changing mission of energy security,” the former fracking magnate said.
He said he wanted to get support from “all the nations in this noble organisation to work with us, to push the IEA to drop the climate. That’s political stuff”.
Speaking earlier, IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol insisted that the Paris-based agency was “data-driven”.
“We are a nonpolitical organisation,” he added.
The IEA produces monthly reports on oil demand and supply as well as annual world energy outlooks that include data on the growth of solar and wind energy, among other analyses.
Wright praised Birol for reinserting a scenario that looked at the growth of oil and gas demand — which had been dropped from the reports in 2020 — in last November’s annual outlook.
In an interview with AFP on Tuesday, Wright said the IEA has “made some first steps” to reform but still has “a long way to go”.
But the US energy chief also pressed on with his criticism, telling reporters before the start of Wednesday’s meetings: “The IEA has been infected with sort of a climate cult that’s about energy subtraction.”
– ‘Age of electricity unstoppable’ –
President Donald Trump, who has called human-driven global warming a hoax, has pulled the United States out of the United Nations’ bedrock climate treaty and, last week, dismantled the legal basis for US climate rules.
Wright has used his time in Paris to challenge the consensus on climate science.
“This belief that climate change is urgent, it’s causing catastrophic damage today, and we have to drop everything and focus everything on that: I can tell you nothing, nothing in the climate data supports that,” he said.
The European Union’s climate monitor, however, says the last three years have been the hottest globally on record, driven by rising greenhouse gas emissions that are causing global warming.
Experts warn that rising global temperatures are bringing hotter summers, more frequent flooding, stronger storms and increasingly devastating wildfires and droughts.
In a sign that not all nations agree with Wright, British energy secretary Ed Miliband announced that the UK would contribute a further 12 million pounds ($16 million) to the IEA’s Clean Energy Transitions Programme.
“The age of electricity is unstoppable,” Miliband said.
For many countries, he added, “clean energy is the most secure and affordable way to meet this rising demand over the long term.”
He praised the IEA and Birol, saying: “You treat all members equally and fairly.”
U.S. Threatens to Quit IEA Over Green Energy Advocacy
The United States has threatened, once again, to quit the International Energy Agency (IEA) if the organization, created in the aftermath of the 1970s Arab oil embargo, doesn’t return to forecasting energy demand without strongly promoting green energy.
“If it goes back to what it was — it was a fabulous international data recording agency, it was getting into critical minerals, was focused on big energy issues — we’re all in on that,” U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said ahead of an IEA ministerial meeting this week.
“But if they insist that it’s so dominated and infused with climate stuff — yes, then we’re out,” Secretary Wright said ahead of the meeting, as carried by Bloomberg.
Last November, the IEA dropped its predictions that oil demand growth would peak in a matter of a few years in the first major shift since it started promoting net-zero and green energy early this decade.
The tension between the Trump Administration and the IEA has escalated in recent months.
A House committee last summer approved a bill that the U.S. withdraw its funding to the IEA, as the Republican lawmakers consider that the agency has strayed from its mission to safeguard energy security and has been pushing green energy policies instead.
In July 2025, Secretary Wright said that the United States could abandon the IEA if the organization continues with its strong advocacy for renewables and doesn’t return to rational analysis of energy demand and promoting energy security.
“We will do one of two things: we will reform the way the IEA operates or we will withdraw,” Wright told Bloomberg in an interview in the middle of July.
“My strong preference is to reform it,” Secretary Wright added.
The official echoed voices in the U.S. Republican party that the agency has become an advocate of the energy transition and is not objective in forecasting energy demand trends.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
‘Climate cult’ hurts Europe’s economy, US energy secretary tells AFP
By AFP
February 17, 2026
US Energy Secretary Chris Wright told AFP the US remains a "stout ally" of Europe - Copyright GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/File ALEX WONG
Laurent Thomet, Kate Gillam and Ali Bekhtaoui
A “climate cult” has weighed on Europe’s economy, US Energy Secretary Chris Wright told AFP on Tuesday, adding that the United States has shown its allies “tough love” because it wants them to become stronger.
Wright is attending ministerial meetings at the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) this week, months after US-European ties were rattled over President Donald Trump’s bid to acquire Greenland.
In an interview with AFP, Wright said Europe can count on the United States as a reliable partner despite the tensions over the Danish autonomous territory.
He also defended Trump’s decision last week to repeal the legal basis for US climate rules, downplaying concerns about rising carbon emissions.
“That’s been sort of a side effect of the modern world,” said Wright, a former fracking magnate.
“The real impact is the world’s a little bit warmer, a little bit greener, a little bit wetter … And all the policies, noise in Europe, in the US, and all that, don’t even move the needle on that.”
The EU’s climate monitor, however, says the last three years have been the hottest globally on record, driven by rising greenhouse gas emissions that are causing global warming.
– ‘Tough love’ –
Asked what message he had for Europe, Wright said: “We just need to be serious and sober about energy. Energy makes people’s lives better.”
He said the “climate cult” has driven up energy prices in Europe while the continent produces less of it.
“It has reduced economic opportunities for Europeans,” he said. “We want a strong, powerful, industrial, wealthy, prosperous Europe.”
EU energy commissioner Dan Jorgensen said last month that there were increasing worries over Europe becoming too dependent on the United States for liquefied natural gas (LNG) following the Greenland spat.
Europe vowed to buy huge amounts of fossil fuels from the United States as part of a trade deal to end a tariffs row last year.
“Geopolitical turmoil in the wake of the crisis in Greenland has been a wake-up call,” Jorgensen told reporters.
Speaking to AFP after a conference at the French Institute of International Relations think tank, Wright said Europe should not worry as the United States remained a “stout ally”.
Trump has a “very aggressive” style but “there was never a possibility the US was going to invade Greenland”, he said.
“In fact, all of the United States’ tough love is to try to get Europe to have a stronger military, stronger energy system, stronger economy, to be better, stronger allies with us.”
He said the United States would not use LNG as political leverage.
“We will be a rock solid, reliable supplier of LNG to Europe,” Wright said.
– ‘Crazy policy’ –
Wright, who is attending IEA meetings in the French capital on Wednesday and Thursday, has been critical of the organisation’s focus on renewable energy and threatened to withdraw the United States if it did not reform.
The 31-member IEA was founded in 1974 to help coordinate collective responses to major disruptions of supplies in the wake of the 1973 oil crisis.
Wright told AFP that IEA has “made some first steps” to reform but still has “a long way to go”.
“A lot of the IEA work is focused on climate change and the Paris net zero thing,” he said.
Scientists say that the world must reach net zero emissions by 2050 if it is to reach the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting warming to 1.5C above preindustrial levels.
“That’s a crazy policy,” Wright said. “Climate advocacy groups can do what they want, but you can’t have climate advocacy within an honest group that’s about energy security.”
– Trump’s ‘revolutionary’ Venezuela idea –
Wright’s trip to Paris comes a week after he became the highest-ranking US official to visit Venezuela since US special forces captured and overthrew socialist leader Nicolas Maduro on January 3.
Trump, he said, had “a revolutionary geopolitical idea. And so far it’s working swimmingly”.
The goal, he said, is to “dramatically grow” Venezuelan oil production, improve the lives of Venezuelans, and reduce the “criminal and migration and kidnapping” threats on the United States.
Since Maduro’s capture, around $1 billion in oil revenue has flowed through US-controlled accounts, Wright said, adding: “All the money is going back to Caracas.”
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