US Energy Secretary Urges International Energy Agency to Prioritize Energy Security Over Climate Change Focus

Washington D.C. US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm urged the International Energy Agency (IEA) to shift its focus from solely climate change issues to energy security.

Speaking at the agency's ministerial meeting in Paris, Granholm stated, "I want to urge all nations within this great organization to work with us to pressure the IEA to stop focusing only on climate issues and to gain more cooperation and support."

Granholm had warned last year that the US would withdraw from the IEA if the agency, established to coordinate responses to supply disruptions following the 1973 petroleum crisis, did not reform its operational approach.

Granholm said on Wednesday, "The IEA was created to 'focus on energy security.'" However, the former chief fracking magnet added, "That is outside the issue of the climate reform campaign, and I want to ask all members here that we need to focus the IEA's attention on this completely life-changing, world-changing campaign of energy security," the former chief fracking magnet said.

Earlier, IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol stated that the Paris-based agency is a 'data-driven' organization. He said, "We are a non-political organization."