The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) reacted harshly to the International Energy Agency’s statement that the world is now “at the beginning of the end” for the fossil fuel age, warning that these predictions would lead to an unprecedented energy chaos for many economies globally.
Oil producing group OPEC on Thursday slammed the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) forecast that demand for fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas will peak before the end of the decade, calling such a forecast “extremely risky”, “impractical” and “impractical”. He underlined that it was “ideologically motivated”.
The world’s leading energy monitoring agency, IEA, announced on Tuesday that the world is now at the “beginning of the end” for the fossil fuel era.
In his column published in the Financial Times, UEA CEO Fatih Birol wrote that for the first time, it is estimated that the demand for coal, oil and gas will reach its peak before 2030, and then fossil fuel consumption will decrease with the entry into force of climate policies. Its assessment is based on the IEA’s World Energy Outlook, an influential report for the sector, due to be published in October.
“Projected declines are far from limiting warming.”
Birol called the 2030 forecast a “historic turning point” but noted that the projected declines are far from being close to putting the world on a path to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
This temperature threshold is widely considered the critical threshold to avoid the worst effects of the climate crisis. The use of fossil fuels is cited as the main cause of the declared climate change emergency.
OPEC, a multinational group made up mostly of Middle Eastern and African countries, issued a statement on Thursday outlining its objections to IEA President Birol’s forecast.
“It will potentially lead to energy chaos on an unprecedented scale.”
OPEC Secretary General Haitham al-Ghais said in a statement: “Such narratives only lead to a spectacular failure of the global energy system. “This situation will have dire consequences for economies and billions of people globally, potentially leading to energy chaos on an unprecedented scale.”
OPEC said previous predictions that fossil fuel demand would peak did not come true. But he stressed that the difference with those forecasts today, and “what makes such forecasts so dangerous,” is that they are often accompanied
by calls to stop investing in new oil and gas projects.
OPEC has previously called on the IEA to be “very careful” about undermining industrial investment.
UEA President Birol, on the other hand, said that he was aware that some investment was needed in oil and gas to account for the decrease in existing fields, but that new large-scale fossil fuel projects were associated with major climate and financial risks.
OPEC-UEA relations are becoming increasingly tense
The relationship between OPEC and the IEA has become increasingly tense in recent years, and Birol had criticized the speed at which the producers’ alliance was increasing production rates while resolving the severe production cuts it implemented in the wake of the Covid-19 outbreak.
However, OPEC and IEA’s approaches to global decarbonization also differed. The IEA has repeatedly stated that the path to net-zero emissions requires major reductions in the use of oil, gas and coal, and warned in a landmark report in 2021 that there is no room for new fossil fuel projects if the world is to stave off this disaster.
The message given by the world’s leading climate scientists in April last year was that a significant reduction in fossil fuel use would be necessary to stop global warming.
However, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change also said in a statement on the subject that current fossil fuel use is already more than the planet can handle and that additional projects will limit larger emissions that will have devastating consequences.