The price of propaganda

On September 12, the executive director of the International Energy Agency, Fatih Birol, published an opinion piece in the Financial Times claiming demand for all hydrocarbons was going to peak before 2030.

The piece came out a month after another IEA update that warned oil demand had already hit an all-time high this year and could rise further, contributing to a rally in oil prices.

So far, so Birol. But then, two weeks after the September 12 opinion piece, the IEA published an updated version of its Net Zero Roadmap, originally published in May 2021 as Net Zero by 2050. In the update, the IEA said that oil, gas, and coal demand had to fall by 25% by 2030 if the net-zero vision was to survive.

So, we’ve got one opinion by Birol saying oil, gas, and coal are done for, basically, or will be soon enough, even with no change of current energy policies. Then we’ve got a report by the institution headed by Birol saying that governments had to step up their energy policy efforts and make oil, gas, and coal demand fall.

For some, this would be just IEA being its usual dissociative. But what if there’s more to this particular crop of reports and updates?

Now, both the opinion piece and the Net Zero Roadmap update came out a month before the IEA’s biggest report: the World Energy Outlook, due to be released in late October. And, again, they came within two weeks of each other, which is quite a short time for two whole updates from the IEA, especially if they contradict each other.

Two weeks is normally not enough for people to forget what Birol said in the peak oil demand op-ed and buy what he says in the net-zero roadmap update. So, why the rush to report and update, risking getting called out on blatant contradictions? Why, it might, just might be because of oil prices and their merry rollercoaster that has been going up, up, and away for more than two months now.