U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said on Thursday that the U.S. would “pressure” the International Energy Agency to move away from net zero — and quit from the global watchdog if it failed to do this.
Wright was speaking on the last day of an IEA ministerial meeting in Paris and shortly after he said the agency would need to reform for the U.S. to remain a long-term member.
“There has been such a group mentality, 10 years invested in a destructive illusion of net zero by 2050, that the U.S. will use all the pressure we have to get the IEA to eventually, in the next year or so, move away from this agenda,” Wright said, according to Reuters.
The 2015 Paris Agreement committed nations to “net zero”, the balancing of carbon emitted into the atmosphere and removed from it. The U.S., India and the European Union were among the polluters that ratified the accord.
Wright added that it was not Washington’s intention to leave the IEA, as there’s “always a risk” China could gain dominance in the agency if it did.
