Year after year, the International Energy Agency publishes detailed data on how much energy the world uses, where that energy comes from, and what the global energy picture may look like in the future.
Lately, the I.E.A.’s influential forecasts have suggested that global demand for oil and gas could peak by the end of the decade as electric-vehicle sales grow and the cost of solar panels and battery storage plummets.
That has landed the agency and its boss, the outspoken Turkish economist Fatih Birol, in the cross-hairs of the Trump administration.
Chris Wright, Mr. Trump’s energy secretary and a former fracking executive, has called the agency’s projections of peak oil demand “nonsensical” and has said the United States could withdraw from the global organization if it doesn’t change the way it operates. House Republicans have said the agency is publishing “politicized information to support climate policy advocacy” and have threatened to withhold U.S. funding. The United States provides around 14 percent of the agency’s budget and is among its 32 member states.
“The way the I.E.A. sees the world is not the way the Trump administration sees the world,” said Michael Bradshaw, an associate fellow at Chatham House, a London-based think tank.
There’s a reason for that. The United States is the world’s biggest producer of oil and gas. The Trump administration is keen to extract more and sell more to other countries. Detailed data that shows slowing demand for oil and gas gets in the way of that ambition, not least because the agency’s reports are widely used by countries and companies to plan for the future.
Yet the agency isn’t an outlier. A number of energy forecasts, including those by BloombergNEF and oil companies like BP and Equinor, have also projected a peak in oil use by around 2030, according to a detailed comparison by Resources for the Future, a Washington-based research group.
That’s in part because China’s once boundless appetite for oil appears to be leveling off as Chinese companies expand their offerings of cars and motorcycles that run on batteries instead of petroleum.
Some others have a very different vision of the future, especially the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and Exxon Mobil. They see continuing growth in oil in coming decades, though at a slower pace than before. OPEC has said that other forecasters are underestimating future demand for fossil fuels as emerging economies in Africa, Latin America and Asia become richer.
The I.E.A.’s critics say that predicting a peak in fossil fuels too early could lead countries and companies to underinvest in oil and gas drilling. Then, if demand for fossil fuels does not fall, OPEC has said, the lack of supply could lead to “energy chaos.”
There is no lack of supply at the moment. Global oil demand has been growing more slowly in 2024 and 2025 than in 2023, while oil producers are on track to pump more crude than the world is actually using, the International Energy Agency said this month.
Mr. Birol has not been shy about responding to detractors, pointing to the acceleration of wind and solar power and other cleaner technologies such as E.V.s. “I have a gentle suggestion to oil executives,” Mr. Birol said in a 2023 interview. “They should talk to car manufacturers, to the heat pump industry, to the renewable industry, to investors, and see what they all think the future of energy looks like.”
The Trump administration in recent weeks has stepped up its criticism of data it sees as unfavorable. This month, President Trump fired the federal official responsible for collecting monthly U.S. employment data after a report that showed weak hiring. Federal agencies have also removed climate-science information from their websites.
The International Energy Agency was created in the 1970s in the aftermath of a global oil crisis. Its original mandate was to monitor global crude supplies and help oil-consuming countries coordinate to prevent price shocks. Later came the advent of new fuels and the growing realization of the risks of global warming, which is driven principally by the burning of fossil fuels.
Mr. Birol took over the agency in 2015. Many of the agency’s member nations as well as environmental groups pressured it to broaden its mandate and pay more attention to new energy technologies, like wind and solar. The agency pivoted and began putting out detailed reports on trends in electric vehicles, hydrogen fuels and electric grids.
It also changed the way it projects the future. Previously, the agency had asked what would happen to global fossil fuel demand if countries did not pass new policies, such as stricter fuel-efficiency standards for cars, beyond those already in place. This was called the “current policies scenario.” But in 2020, the agency replaced that scenario with one that also took into account new policies that countries were expected to adopt in the future, particularly as they promised to tackle greenhouse gas emissions. This was known as the “stated policies scenario.”
This new scenario involved more judgment calls, but the agency said it offered a more useful picture of the world’s energy future. And that future included lower growth in demand for coal, oil and gas.
At the same time, the agency created a “net zero scenario,” which asked what changes would be needed if countries were to phase out fossil fuels rapidly in an effort to stop adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere by 2050.
These changes provoked plenty of criticism, with some calling them unrealistic.
Last year, Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming, accused the I.E.A. of being an “energy transition cheerleader” and released a 49-page report criticizing the agency’s forecasts for peaking fossil fuels. He called for the agency to revert to its current policies scenario, which it had stopped releasing, and abandon efforts to model a zero-emissions future.
That U.S. pressure may be working. The I.E.A. said last week that this year’s annual energy outlook will once again include a current policies scenario, which is likely to show a rosier future for oil and gas demand. Yet two people who have seen an early version of the report said it will still include the more aggressive net-zero scenario.
“Everyone wants this independent entity to align with their view of the future,” said Daniel Raimi, a fellow at Resources for the Future. “And the I.E.A. has to navigate that balance because they want to be credible but also want to remain relevant.”
While the International Energy Agency is widely considered one of the best sources of energy analysis around, it has been wrong before. In 2016, the agency suggested that China’s demand for coal might have peaked, but coal use later soared to new levels. It has also underestimated the rapid growth of solar power. Now, some wonder whether the agency might now have been premature in calling a peak in fossil fuels.
“The transition isn’t accelerating as fast as some people had hoped,” Jason Bordoff, the head of the Center for Global Energy Policy at Columbia University said. “Some of the rosier projections that oil, gas and coal might fall faster aren’t bearing out.”
Despite the criticisms, the agency still enjoys a great deal of support from its member states. “The I.E.A. is an important and globally recognized body and provides science-based data and analysis on energy security, global energy markets, energy technologies and energy access,” Dan Jorgenson, the European Union energy minister, said by email. He credited it with playing “a critical role in the security of supply for Europe,” during the global energy crisis that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Mr. Birol has not been shy to express his confidence in a global energy transition. “The transition to clean energy is happening worldwide and it’s unstoppable,” he said in 2023. In July, the agency said that renewables are poised to overtake coal as the leading source of electricity next year.
Yet Mr. Birol has also been at pains to stress that the world will rely on oil and gas for some time, even if demand does peak. In March, at a major oil and gas trade show in Houston, he said the world would still need to invest heavily in oil and gas extraction in the years ahead to offset the decline of existing wells. “There is a need” for continued investments in oil and gas, Mr. Birol said, “full stop.”