Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios
Sen. John Barrasso said President Trump's election and what he called a global turn against climate priorities provide a mandate to overhaul the International Energy Agency.
Why it matters: Barrasso — now the second-ranking Senate Republican — has criticized IEA outlooks for being biased against fossil fuels and a "cheerleader" for renewable energy.
- Sen. John Hickenlooper told Axios that criticisms about IEA's projections are fair but that a greater dialogue is needed.
- "It's important, when we diverge, to get the two organizations together to just sit down and not just say: 'You're wrong, we're right, and we're not going to use your report," he said.
- Higher LNG exports are "something that every American — Democrats, Republicans, Independents — should see an alignment of self-interest," Hickenlooper said earlier.
Driving the news: The National Center for Energy Analytics hosted the two senators to discuss the group's recent critique of the IEA's flawed assumptions about the fossil fuel industry.
- Trucks, ships, planes, and plastics are all industries whose true demand for fossil fuels the IEA is ignoring, said Neil Atkinson, the agency's former head of the oil industry and markets.
What they're saying: "Fossil fuels have provided a better life for billions of people, and they're going to continue to do so, in spite of whatever aspirations there might be with the Paris Climate Agreement and what the IEA has chosen to do," Barrasso said.
- Barrasso told reporters that the IEA had responded to his letter but that the agency was "still based on aspirations, as opposed to the reality of where we are today."
The other side: The IEA said the center's report is "full of rudimentary errors and fundamental misrepresentations about both energy systems in general and IEA modelling in particular."
- In a statement to Axios, the agency said the report contends that its core scenario "assumes the full implementation of pledges made under the Paris Agreement. This is entirely false."
- It also said the report "incorrectly suggests the IEA's oil demand projections are an outlier — in reality, the projections are well aligned with comparable scenarios of other organizations, including major oil companies."
Editor's note: This story has been updated with comments from IEA.
