June 28, 2006

Sack some in the IEA!

Sir, Martin Wolf in his “Why the energy revolution will continue to power ahead”, June 28, concludes “anybody who thinks it will be easy to reduce global energy consumption is simply dreaming” and asks “where might all this energy come from?”, and he promises to tackle this monumental upcoming crash of trains in future columns. Nonetheless, though thankful for Mr. Wolf’s efforts, we should remember that is exactly why the OECD countries set up the International Energy Agency (IEA), that intergovernmental body that describes its mission on the Web as “advancing security of energy supply, economic growth and environmental sustainability through energy policy co-operation”.

Since we so recently could read in the world press about oil heading down towards $5 and the end of the oil age, and never heard an IEA representative forcefully negating such predictions, may I advance the idea that the first thing to be done, specially in times when we preach the worth of accountability, is to publicly sack some IEA bureaucrats, as incompetent lazybones, or worse, for misrepresenting the facts. This is no joking matter as hundreds of millions of persons around the globe will suffer if IEA, and others like them, do not get their act together.