Clean sources key to energy security, but supply chain risks remain: IEA summit
Clean energy has a central role to play in energy security as the world enters the age of electrification, but supply chain risks remain, global leaders heard on Friday.
(London, United Kingdom) — Clean energy sources have a central role to play in energy security as the world enters the age of electrification, however this comes with new potential issues including supply chain risks and shortages of critical minerals, the IEA’s Future of Energy Security summit in London on Friday heard.
Speaking at the press conference concluding the two-day event, which was attended by over 60 countries including net oil exporting ones and a number of major energy companies including Shell, BP Eni and Iberdrola, the IEA’s director Fatih Birol said that there was consensus on the fact “there is no national security without energy security.”
“Countries have different priorities and policies, national pathways we understand and we respect that” but at the same time `’countries are becoming more and more interconnected and interdependent…No country is an energy island today.”
“Countries are interconnected through international energy prices, technologies and carbon emissions” therefore “cooperation is crucial,” he said.
He added governments were pushing for the IEA to expand its role in mediating and facilitating cooperation on energy security.
“All the countries (attending the event) recognise that we are entering a new era of energy security… Countries agreed that we still have to pay utmost attention to traditional energy security risks, such as oil and gas, but at the same time (there are) emerging security risks of critical minerals and supply chains.”
“With the expansion of clean energy technologies” such as “renewables and EVs, supply chains are getting more and more important,” he added.
Meanwhile Ed Milband, the UK secretary of state for energy security and net zero, reiterated the UK government’s full support of clean energies as it sees renewables and nuclear as core in its future energy strategy and energy security.
The government is ready to fight for the case in favour of “cheap clean renewables against” the “case to stick with expensive insecure fossil fuels which gave us the cost of living crisis, which ruin families finances (…) public finances (and) business finances and say no to huge job opportunities.”
“The clean energy transition is happening around the world and is unstoppable” although he conceded this isn’t happening “fast enough.”
There is a “hard headed case for investing in clean energy because it is about not just climate but energy security as well as jobs and growth,” he said.
He added the government was “doubling down on multilateralism” through initiatives such as the Global Clean Power Alliance, which was launched last year.
Pressured on the contrast between UK and U.S. policies on energy, he said the government was focusing on areas of common interest such as the focus on new nuclear energy.
Asked about the proposed UK carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) announced on Thursday — which will place a carbon price on the emissions embodied in imports of specified goods in the aluminium, cement, fertiliser, hydrogen, and iron and steel sectors — and whether this will apply to goods of U.S. origin, he said he did “not want to get into the details of trade discussions” but that the two countries are focusing on “finding common ground.”
(Writing by Beatrice Bedeschi; editing by Sophie Davies)