International Energy Agency
The IEA acts as a policy adviser to its member states, but also works with non-member countries, especially China, India, and Russia. The Agency's mandate has broadened to focus on the "3Es" of effectual energy policy: energy security, economic development, and environmental protection. The latter has focused on mitigating climate change. The IEA has a broad role in promoting alternate energy sources (including renewable energy), rational energy policies, and multinational energy technology co-operation.
The IEA was established to meet the industrial countries' energy organization needs in the wake of the 1973–1974 oil crisis. Although the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) had structures such as the Council, the Executive Committee, the Oil Committee, and the Energy Committee that could potentially deal with energy questions, it could not respond effectively to the crisis. The OECD had adopted the Oil Apportionment Decision [C(72)201(Final)], laying out procedures to be carried out in the event of an oil supply emergency in Europe, but these procedures were not implemented during the crisis. In addition, the OECD had adopted recommendations on oil stockpiling in Europe, but due to their limited scope, these measures could have only a limited role in an oil supply emergency.
While creating a new energy organization, it was decided to utilize the framework of the OECD, as it had experience in dealing with oil and other energy questions, had expertise in economic analysis and statistics, had established staff, physical facilities, legal status and privileges and immunities, and was the principal organization of the industrial countries. However, the OECD has a rule of unanimity, and not all member states were ready to participate. Therefore, instead of an integrated approach, an autonomous approach was chosen.
In March 2017, after a series of intensive consultations with all the relevant ministries, India joined the IEA as an association country. This was a major milestone for global energy governance and another major step towards the IEA becoming a truly global energy organisation and strengthening ties with the key energy players. Since then, Indian delegations have actively participated in IEA committees, meetings and workshops. The IEA launches major publications in New Delhi to share our findings with Indian energy communities and policy-makers.
The Energy Watch Group (EWG), a coalition of scientists and politicians which analyses official energy industry predictions, claims that the IEA has had an institutional bias towards traditional energy sources and has been using "misleading data" to undermine the case for renewable energy, such as wind and solar. A 2008 EWG report compares IEA projections about the growth of wind power capacity and finds that it has consistently underestimated the amount of energy the wind power industry can deliver.
