US energy chief says IEA should focus on climate change

US Energy Secretary Chris Wright on Wednesday (Feb 18, 2026) urged the International Energy Agency to abandon its work on climate change and focus on its founding mission.

Mr Wright last year threatened to withdraw the United States from the IEA – which was established 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”, Mr Wright said at the agency’s ministerial meeting in Paris on Wednesday (Feb 18, 2026).

“That mission is not critical, and I’m here to appeal to all members (of the IEA) that we need to focus on this absolutely life-changing, world-changing mission of energy security,” Mr Wright said.

“To get support from all the countries in this great organization to work with us, to push the IEA to reduce climate. That’s political stuff,” he said.

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Speaking earlier, IEA executive director Fatih Birol insisted the Paris-based agency was “data driven”.

“Ours is a non-political organization,” he added.

The IEA produces monthly reports on oil demand and supply as well as annual global energy outlooks that include data on solar and wind energy growth, among other analyses.

Mr. Birol was also credited for reintroducing a scenario that saw demand for oil and gas rise in 2020 — which had been dropped from the reports. Wright praised.

In an interview with AFP On Tuesday (February 17), Mr. Wright said the IEA had “taken some first steps” towards reform but still had “a long way to go”.

But the US energy chief also continued his criticism, telling reporters before the start of the meetings on Wednesday: “The IEA is infected with some sort of climate cult about energy abstraction.”

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President Donald Trump, who has called human-driven global warming a hoax, pulled the United States out of the United Nations’ bedrock climate accord and, last week, scrapped the legal basis for US climate regulations.

Mr Wright used his time in Paris to challenge the consensus on climate science.

“This belief that climate change is urgent, is causing catastrophic damage today, and we need to drop everything and focus on: I can’t tell you anything, nothing in the climate data supports it,” he said.

The European Union’s Climate Monitor, however, says the past three years have been the hottest globally on record due to rising greenhouse gas emissions that are causing global warming.

Experts warn that rising global temperatures are bringing hotter summers, more frequent floods, stronger storms and increasingly devastating wildfires and droughts.

In a sign that not all countries agree with Wright, British Energy Secretary Ed Miliband announced that the UK would contribute another 12 million pounds ($16 million) to the IEA’s Clean Energy Transitions program.

“The electric age is unstoppable,” said Mr Miliband.

For many countries, he said, “clean energy is the most secure and affordable way to meet this growing demand in the long term.”

He is the IEA and Mr. Praised Birol: “You treat all members equally and fairly.”