U.S. Chairs International Energy Agency's Ministerial Meeting

Global energy leaders met in Paris this week for the International Energy Agency (IEA)’s 2022 Ministerial Meeting, sending a strong message of unity on the need to strengthen energy security, reduce market volatility, and accelerate clean energy transitions worldwide. Chaired by U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm, the two-day meeting of energy and climate ministers representing more than 40 governments from around the world took place amid the severe energy market turmoil and energy security concerns triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last month. The major gathering of energy decision makers took place just a few months after the COP26 Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, where governments from around the world raised their ambitions for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
 
Ministers from the IEA’s 31 Member Countries said the Ministerial Meeting marks “the launch of a new phase of the Agency,” with a series of new mandates setting out its mission going forward. “In addition to ensuring global energy security, the IEA has a new guiding principle: supporting countries in the global effort to attain net zero greenhouse gas emissions in the energy sector by mid-century,” they said in a joint communiqué. Achieving net zero emissions by mid-century would give the world an even chance of limiting the rise in global temperatures to 1.5 °C, which is a critical threshold for avoiding the worst effects of climate change.
 
The new IEA mandates cover areas such as ensuring energy security during the energy transition and leading the global energy sector’s fight against climate change, with a notable emphasis on expanding the IEA’s work on the critical minerals needed for clean energy technologies.
 
For more information on the IEA Ministerial, visit:
https://www.iea.org/events/iea-2022-ministerial-meeting