Washington: About lunchtime the day we met, Light pyrrolA soft-spoken Turkish energy economist retired to his hotel room to eat two boiled eggs and a banana in front of his computer.
Birol, with his usual modesty, was preparing for a meeting that could have serious consequences. The organization he has led from anonymity for the past decade, International Energy Agency (International Energy Agency)just came under severe attack by the Trump administration.
He was about to meet US Energy Secretary Chris Wright, who had just publicly criticized the International Energy Agency, calling it “ridiculous” for predicting that global demand for fossil fuels would soon begin to decline. Republicans threatened to cut off significant US government funding for the International Energy Agency if it did not change its position.
The very fact that the meeting took place demonstrates the enormous influence the IEA has gained during Birol’s administration. He told me that a decade ago, he might have met Wright’s assistant. Now, he was involved in a verbal dispute with the US government.
Birol likes to joke that he is “the most boring man in the world.” It certainly radiates bureaucratic simplicity. But he also skillfully led the International Energy Agency for a decade Energy has re-emerged as a geopolitical weapon. DA discussion of how tackling climate change will impact economic and diplomatic relations around the worldJust as the Trump administration is working to reverse the global trend toward shifting to renewable energy by producing, consuming, and exporting as much fossil fuel as possible.
For his part, Birol has repeatedly issued a warning to the fossil fuel industry of this kind “Adapt or fail”Especially with solar energy growing at a rate that even the International Energy Agency underestimated.
Whether you agree with the IEA or not, you The constant flow of data-driven reports routinely turmoils the markets, affecting billions of dollars in investments It sparks both admiration and disdain among politicians, energy executives and climate activists who hang on Birol’s every word.
More than a dozen countries decorated Birol with state medals. He was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun, First Class, in Japan, the highest state award given to ordinary people, in addition to the Zayed Medal, awarded by the United Arab Emirates in honor of its founder. (The Zayed Medal includes a solid gold necklace made up of 14 engraved rings).
Birol now regularly appears in photographs alongside the world’s most powerful leaders at lavish, high-stakes summits.
“The more important we are, the more people will want us to prove them right,” Birol said, referring to the attention he receives from people across the political and economic spectrum. “But the reason we exist is data. Data always wins,” he said.
However, collecting primary data from dozens of its member countries is only part of the IEA’s work. Under Birol’s leadership, the International Energy Agency became a… An organization that identifies the different paths the world can take in energy use and provides roadmaps for achieving them.
The organization’s members, mostly Western countries, have increasingly turned to it for guidance, even if the IEA has sometimes been wrong on some of the biggest questions, such as the growth rate of solar energy or how quickly coal use will decline. Perhaps the most important question of all is whether or not the world is approaching peak demand for fossil fuelsThis is a matter to which the International Energy Agency has reviewed its response on several occasions.
The mere fact that the International Energy Agency made such a prediction led to friction between the agency and the Trump administration.which has dismantled almost all US climate policy. The United States contributes about 14% of the International Energy Agency’s budget. Republicans accused the agency of spreading the word “Politicized information to support climate policy advocacy.”
Many in the fossil fuel industry share a pessimistic view of the IEA. The head of OPEC, the oil-producing bloc, said this year that the International Energy Agency had a choice “Anti-oil rhetoric” And they are The road maps were “unrealistic”.
But Birol says he doesn’t tell anyone what to do, just what is likely to happen. And now, It convinced Washington not to impose sanctions. At the same time, the organization is preparing to give We welcome two new members who play a key role in the energy sector: India and Brazil.
India’s ambassador to France between 2020 and 2024, Jawad Ashraf, who knows Birol well, said the IEA’s forecasts are particularly important for countries trying to balance economic growth with their commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
“What Fatih did was apply the full weight of data collection and modeling at a detailed level, which gives a clear idea of the type of effort required to achieve climate goals,” Ashraf said. “somehow, This is more important than the UN climate negotiations. The IEA reports it, not the other way around.
The IEA was created by Henry Kissinger, then Secretary of State, in the 1970s, when climate change was not part of the political discourse. The agency’s original mandate was to monitor global oil supplies and help countries coordinate to prevent energy crises. In 1973, a group of Arab oil producers banned crude oil exports to the United States and other countries in protest of their support for Israel. This led to skyrocketing prices, fuel shortages, and a period of economic stagnation known as stagflation.
Birol was a young film student in Vienna when the IEA was in its infancy. He had a penchant for surrealism. According to him, only one of his cinematic works remains. It was filmed in eight-millimeter format, has a duration of 18 minutes, and is titled “A Lyric Murder of Love.” The film contains no dialogue and its soundtrack is Tchaikovsky’s melancholy Symphony No. 6 in B minor. “It’s not a happy story,” Birol commented.
But she got married when she was 18 years old and gave birth to a child when she was 19 years old, and cinema did not provide her with a living. He switched to energy economics and got a part-time job at a fruit and vegetable market. After graduating, he became a data analyst at OPEC.
He joined the International Energy Agency and, after two decades of career advancement, was elected Executive Director in 2015. Alternative energy sources, such as solar, wind and extracted natural gas, were poised to experience significant growth. The agency expanded its scope of interest, Moving from oil to analyzing how vehicles, data centers and heavy industries operate. he Climate change is emerging as a hot political issue With the increasing clarity of the scientific relationship between its causes and greenhouse gas emissions, Greenhouse gases.
Shortly after taking office, Birol pushed for a radical change in the way the organization presented its forecasts. Previously, the agency had only forecast what would happen to global demand for fossil fuels if countries simply stayed on their current path. Such reports generally point to long-term growth in fossil fuel consumption.
But in 2020, the agency replaced this scenario with one that takes into account the policies that countries are likely to implement, based primarily on their commitments to reduce emissions under global climate negotiations. At the time, Birol stated that he offered A A more realistic vision for the future of energy in the world. However, it marked the beginning of a dispute between the IEA and many fossil fuel advocates.
The IEA also published a so-called net-zero emissions scenario, which, rather than just forecasting the future, identified 400 milestones the world could reach on its way to stopping emitting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere by 2050.
One important milestone was the cancellation of all investments in new coal, oil and gas fields. This became a slogan for climate activists, although Birol later clarified that the IEA was not describing an action plan, but simply stating that it would eventually happen as the world moved towards carbon neutrality.
Although the IEA’s work has attracted more attention and criticism, Birol has maintained his popularity. He was unanimously elected by the organization’s member states for a third four-year term ending in 2027. In addition, the agency itself has doubled in size under his leadership. Birol proudly recalls that more than a thousand people recently applied for an entry-level position similar to the one he held in the 1990s.
This year, under pressure from Washington, the IEA is restoring its original “current policies” scenario to complement other policies. The annual report, the World Energy Outlook, is scheduled to be published this week.
But, as often happens when trying to please everyone, everyone can end up resentful in the end. “I’m here to make people think about the future, and really imagine it, which is very difficult,” he said. “Climate change is a good example of this. People only pay attention when there is a disaster. But we need a plan to deal with it.”
About The Author
