IEA Contributions to the G7 in 2022

In 2022, the IEA advised the G7 on energy security, clean energy financing and supply chains, Just Energy Transition Partnerships, and climate change.

In June, IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol took part in the G7 Summit in Elmau, Germany, where he briefed world leaders on the IEA’s recommendations for responding to the global energy crisis. At the invitation of Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany, head of the G7 Presidency, Dr Birol addressed G7 leaders, as well as the leaders of five partner countries invited to the Summit – Argentina, India, Indonesia, Senegal and South Africa – on major energy and climate issues.

“The world does not need to choose between solving the energy security crisis and the climate crisis – we have the technologies and the policies to solve both at once,” Dr Birol said during the discussions with the G7 and partner country leaders alongside those of the European Union and several international organisations.

The G7 leaders highlighted the IEA’s key role in safeguarding energy security in their communiqué from the Summit.

“We are concerned about the burden of energy price increases and energy market instability, which aggravate inequalities nationally and internationally and threaten our shared prosperity,” they said. “In coordination with the IEA, we will explore additional measures to reduce price surges and prevent further impacts on our economies and societies, in the G7 and globally.”

The Ministers issued a separate statement announcing plans to establish a new Climate Club initiative “to support the effective implementation of the Paris Agreement by accelerating climate action and increasing ambition, with a particular focus on the industry sector”. The leaders asked the IEA, the OECD, the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO to support this process “in line with their relevant expertise”.

In May, Dr Birol attended the G7 Ministers' Meeting on Climate, Energy and Environment in Berlin. The communiqué from that meeting devoted particular attention the IEA’s recent report on Achieving Net Zero Heavy Industry Sectors in G7 Members, which was produced at the request of Germany’s G7 Presidency. The report lays out a series of recommendations for G7 economies to advance the transition towards near zero emission steel and cement production, building on the IEA’s landmark 2021 report Net Zero by 2050: A Roadmap for the Global Energy Sector.

“We welcome the report by the International Energy Agency on ‘Achieving Net Zero Heavy Industry Sectors in G7 Members’, especially its recommendations regarding the suitable policies and financing mechanisms on the pathway to near zero industry production and the suggested principles of common and practicable definitions of near-zero-emission materials production,” the Ministers said in the communiqué. The Ministerial meeting was led by Germany’s Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection Robert Habeck and Federal Minister for the Environment and Consumer Protection Steffi Lemke.

An annex to the communiqué further acknowledged the importance of the IEA’s report to informing the G7’s Industrial Decarbonisation Agenda.