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Energy Secretary Chris Wright lashed out at European leaders in Paris on Tuesday, accusing the International Energy Agency of pushing “inappropriate” policies divorced from reality and warning the continent to abandon its green agenda or face economic disaster.
Wright’s comments before the 31-member global forum in Paris came after Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio delivered rousing speeches warning European leaders of the pitfalls of their approach.
“This agency has been destroyed, and for five years it has published forward-looking statements, none of which are true,” Wright said in a video obtained by Fox News Digital from an administration source.
“It was all based on the wishes of the weather, politics, domestic politics, do whatever you want,” he said.
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Energy Secretary Chris Wright is speaking at the International Energy Agency in France this week. (Ana Lopez/Getty Images)
The Paris-based IEA was founded after the 1974 global oil crisis as a consortium focused on security of oil supply but has shifted in recent years to green energy and climate policy.
“If European industrial powers want to continue to be ‘former industrial powers,’ that’s your choice. I don’t think it’s a good choice, but that’s your choice.”
Wright said the energy policies of many Western governments have little basis in the real needs of their citizens, power grids and national security needs.
He said almost all IEA reports talk about the “Net Zero by 2050” case.
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“There is a zero percent chance that the world will hit ‘Net Zero 2050’.”
He said the efforts of states and nations to comply with that goal did not make them stronger or richer in electricity but instead led to the use of a pool of $10 billion to add about 2.6% of wind, solar and battery power to the global transmission grid.
Wright went on to say that authorities that have introduced stricter green standards have seen electricity prices rise, pointing to test cases within the US itself.
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“All states within the renewable portfolio, on average, [has] Electricity prices are 50% higher than other states that did not accept that.”
“We don’t want to deindustrialize Europe. We don’t want to make life more expensive and dispossess our people. We don’t want two million people to die because they don’t have clean cooking oil. We want to give the world better energy – that’s what the IEA was founded on.”
Wright praised IEA Director Fatih Birol of Turkey for appearing to take “direct action” in his latest published policy position after what the secretary described as five years away from “reality.”
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He said “climate and political stuff” should be reserved for politicians, not energy policymakers, and expressed hope that the IEA and its member nations will see the error of their ways and return to what energy policy should be about: “People – and numbers.”
Fox News Digital has reached out to the IEA for comment.
