The International Energy Agency (IEA).

Why in News?

• The International Energy Agency (IEA) said that global capacity for producing renewable energy will soar by some 75 percent in the next five years.
• According to Agency’s forecast, renewables will account for over 90 percent of global electricity expansion over the next five years, overtaking coal to become the largest source of global electricity by early 2025.
• The IEA expects worldwide capacity to grow by some 2,400 gigawatts the equivalent.
• That increase is 30 percent higher than the growth predicted a year ago, as higher fuel and electricity prices make renewables increasingly attractive to investors and consumers.
• IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said that the world is set to add as much renewable power in the next five years as it did in the previous 20 years.
• The report also envisaged a scenario where the increase in renewables could exceed its main prediction by 25 percent, making it more likely that the world could reach that target.

Creation

• The IEA was born with the 1973-1974 oil crisis, when industrialised countries found they were not adequately equipped to deal with the oil embargo imposed by major producers that pushed prices to historically high levels.
• This first oil shock led to the creation of the IEA in November 1974 with a broad mandate on energy security and energy policy co-operation.
• This included setting up a collective action mechanism to respond effectively to potential disruptions in oil supply.
• The framework was anchored in the IEA treaty called the “Agreement on an International Energy Program,” with newly created autonomous Agency hosted at the OECD in Paris.
• The IEA was established as the main international forum for energy co-operation on a variety of issues such as security of supply, long-term policy, information transparency, energy efficiency, sustainability, research and development, technology collaboration, and international energy relations.

The IEA’s founding members:

• The IEA’s founding members were Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Norway (under a special Agreement), Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom, and the United States. They were followed by Greece (1976), New Zealand (1977), Australia (1979), Portugal (1981), Finland (1992), France (1992), Hungary (1997), Czech Republic (2001), Republic of Korea (2002), Slovak Republic (2007), Poland (2008), Estonia (2014), and Mexico (2018) and Lithuania (2022). Chile, Colombia and Israel are seeking full membership.
• The IEA’s collective emergency response system mechanism ensures a stabilizing influence on markets and the global economy. It was activated five times since the Agency’s creation. The first was in January 1991, during the First Gulf War.
• The second was in 2005, after the hurricanes Katrina and Rita damaged oil infrastructure in the Gulf of Mexico. The third was in 2011, during the Libyan crisis. The fourth and the fifth were in 2022, after Russia invaded Ukraine.

Modernization strategy

• While energy security remains a core mission, the IEA has evolved over the years, adapting to the transformation of the global energy system. Today, the IEA is at the heart of global dialogue on energy, providing authoritative statistics and analysis and examining the full spectrum of energy issues, advocating policies that will enhance the reliability, affordability and sustainability of energy in its 31 members countries and beyond.
• In 2015, the IEA’s Ministerial Meeting approved a new modernization strategy presented by the Agency’s newly appointed Executive Director, Dr Fatih Birol, to strengthen the Agency’s role as an authoritative voice on global energy policy. Ministers endorsed the focus on creating a more inclusive and truly global agency through closer engagement with emerging energy economies.
• The modernization of the IEA was structured under three pillars:
• Strengthening and broadening the IEA’s commitment to energy security beyond oil, to natural gas and electricity;
• Deepening the IEA’s engagement with major emerging economies;
• and providing a greater focus on clean energy technology, including energy efficiency.