EDF Welcomes IEA Ministerial Statement on Energy and Climate Change

(Paris - November 18, 2015) Today, IEA ministers, led by Secretary Moniz of the U.S. Department of Energy, elevated five key opportunities to reduce energy related greenhouse gas emissions while maintaining economic development when they released the Ministerial Statement on Energy and Climate Change.  

“IEA has identified five of the largest, most cost-effective steps the world can take to reduce climate pollution. With this statement, IEA member countries are showing that they are taking notice. Now it is time to take action. With the upcoming Paris talks putting climate change front and center on the global agenda, this statement is a blueprint for exactly the kind of leadership the world needs,” says EDF’s Nathaniel Keohane, Vice President of Global Climate. 

“One of the most important and immediate opportunities identified by the IEA is cutting emissions of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, from oil and gas production – the single biggest untapped way to reduce the warming we will experience over the next few decades.”

“EDF stands ready to work with IEA and its member states to help reduce global energy emissions, particularly on reducing methane emissions from the oil and gas sector,” Keohane continued.

These five identified opportunities are:

1. Increasing energy efficiency in the industry, buildings and transport sectors;
2. Phasing-out use of the least-efficient coal-fired power plants;
3. Increasing investment in renewable energy technologies, including hydropower, over time, with the goal of reaching at least $400 billion in 2030;
4. Gradually phasing out inefficient fossil-fuel subsidies to end-users; and
5. Reducing methane emissions from global oil and gas production.

In its Special Report 2015: Energy and Climate Change, the IEA estimated that by pursuing these five strategies, a global peak in energy-related emissions could be achieved by the end of this decade without reducing economic growth.

The IEA ministerial statement follows the release of the IEA’s latest World Energy Outlook, which highlighted the global nature of the methane problem, the large scale of emissions – equal to Algeria’s gas production in 2013 – and how countries should develop reduction goals and regulations to curb emissions.