U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright on Tuesday threatened to pull the country out of the International Energy Agency, saying the organization’s push for renewable energy runs counter to the Donald Trump administration’s policy of backing fossil fuels. Speaking in the evening at a conference hosted by the French Institute of International Relations in Paris, Wright said that if “a significant share of data-gathering agencies devote themselves to such left-wing fantasies, it inevitably distorts their mission.” Accusing the IEA of behaving like a “climate-advocacy organization,” he urged the agency to refocus on “energy security.”
Founded in 1974 in the wake of the first oil crisis, the Paris-based IEA produces energy-transition scenarios that for decades have served as benchmarks for the industry. On Wednesday and Thursday, Wright is set to take part in the agency’s ministerial meeting in Paris. “We do not need a net-zero scenario,” he said. “It is absurd—it will never happen.”
After Donald Trump’s return to the White House in January 2025 with a platform centered on expanding fossil-fuel production and rolling back environmental regulations, the international organization came under pressure from Washington. The U.S. administration pressed the IEA’s leadership to scale back work related to the energy transition. In its latest annual report, published in November, the agency partially accommodated these demands by reinstating a scenario based on current trends. Its view on peak oil demand has also shifted—where the IEA once expected it in the 2030s, it now assumes demand will continue to rise until mid-century.
This was not Wright’s first such warning. In an interview with Bloomberg last July, he said: “We will either change the way the IEA operates—or we will leave it.”