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Today I share my January column for Dispatch Energy. In it, I identify some important, but deeply buried, assumptions in the International Energy Agency’s (IEA )most recent World Energy Outlook (WEO).

The IEA has come under some criticism (and properly so, in my view) in recent years for seemingly moving towards advocacy. The most recent WEO, issued at the end of 2025 provides somewhat of a course correction.

The IEA was founded in 1974:

The IEA was founded in 1974 to ensure the security of oil supplies. Energy security remains a central part of our mission but today’s IEA has a wider mandate to focus on a full range of energy issues, including climate change and decarbonisation, energy access and efficiency, investment and innovation, and ensuring reliable, affordable and sustainable energy systems.

The IEA was created in response to the 1973-1974 oil crisis when an oil embargo by major producers pushed prices to historic levels, and exposed the vulnerability of industrialised countries to dependency on oil imports. The newly created autonomous Agency was hosted at the OECD in Paris with an initial mandate for oil supply security and policy co-operation, including setting up a collective action mechanism to respond effectively to potential disruptions in oil supply as well as develop energy conservation policies.

The IEA’s founding members were Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Türkiye, United Kingdom, and the United States.

The IEA is an essential organization. Its scenarios and reports provide essential data, assumptions, and projections that inform global discussions of energy policy. The IEA is neither omniscient nor infallible, but an important touchstone in technical and politicized discussions of energy policy. Its work is worth taking seriously.

That is where my column picks things up . . .

Unpacking Our Global Energy Outlook

Key takeaways from new projections by the International Energy Agency.

Welcome to Dispatch Energy! The intensity of the news cycle nowadays means that longer-term perspectives on energy can be overshadowed by unfolding events—Venezuela! Iran! Two-dollar gasoline!

Energy markets, policies, and technologies do of course respond to daily events, but they also evolve over years and decades. We