Dr. Birol Warns of Deepening Dependency on Fossil Fuels due to
Current Energy Crises
Nearly 2,500 world leaders met in Davos, Switzerland, at the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Annual Meeting from May 22-26, 2022, to address the world’s most pressing concerns including the current global pandemic,
he ongoing conflict in Ukraine, geo-economic shocks, and climate change. It has been more than two years since the WEF held its Annual Meeting in person.
Speaking at the press conference of the WEF 22 Annual Meeting,2 the Executive Director of the IEA, Dr. Fatih Birol emphasized the twin global challenges of energy security and a clean energy transition. “Energy security is becoming a key issue on many countries’ agendas. It is important that the response we give to the Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the resulting energy questions do not lock in our energy future in a way that our chances to limit the temperature increase to 1.5ºC is damaged.”
“The First Global Energy Crisis”
Dr. Birol defined the situation as the first global energy crisis, one that is far different than the oil crisis of the 1970s. “In the seventies, it was the oil crisis but now we have an oil crisis, a natural gas crisis, and a coal crisis. All prices are skyrocketing, and energy security is a priority for many governments, if not all. We are in the middle of the first global energy crisis,” Dr. Birol stated.