The International Energy Agency in Global Energy Governance
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1758-5899.2011.00120.x |
| Published date | 01 September 2011 |
| Date | 01 September 2011 |
| Author | Ann Florini |
The International Energy Agency in
Global Energy Governance
Ann Florini
Brookings Institution and National University of Singapore
Abstract
The International Energy Agency (IEA) is the organization that, despite its constrained membership, is as close as the
world currently comes to a global focal point on the key energy governance arenas. Although when the IEA was
established in the 1970s it had the specific and limited purpose of enabling the world’s leading oil consumers to
undertake collective action in response to oil supply shocks, it now finds itself at the center of many of the key
developments in global energy governance. Its evolution and current challenges reflect the key themes of this special
issue: the competition between state and market, the emergence of multipolarity, the particular growing importance
of Asia and the rise of climate change on the agenda of key tasks needing governance. The article focuses on where
the agency now fits in the larger global energy governance panoply.
Policy Implications
•The IEA’s highly successful partnership with the G8 will not easily extend to the G20, given the latter’s much more
diverse membership and interests. Both the IEA and the G20 governments should look to the experience of the
G8’s ‘tasking’ of the IEA for ideas about how to advance the G20 agenda on energy.
•The IEA’s governing board should systematically assess the agency’s role as a linchpin in a variety of energy-related
regimes and consider how to ensure that the IEA is adequately resourced so that it can fill these multiple roles.
•The IEA’s affiliation with the OECD should be reassessed to facilitate the agency’s engagement with major emerging
oil consumers, particularly India and China.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) is the organization
that, despite its constrained membership, is as close
as the world currently comes to a global focal point on
the key energy governance arenas. Although when the
IEA was established in the 1970s it had the specific and
limited purpose of enabling the world’s leading oil con-
sumers to undertake collective action in response to oil
supply shocks, it now finds itself at the center of many of
the key developments in global energy governance. Its
evolution and current challenges reflect the key themes
of this special issue: the competition between state and
market, the emergence of multipolarity, the particular
growing importance of Asia and the rise of climate
change on the agenda of key tasks needing governance.
After a brief discussion of what governance gaps
the IEA was originally designed to address and how it
evolved in its first decades,
1
this article focuses on where
the agency now fits in the larger global energy gover-
nance panoply, addressing several broad questions:
•Which of the key energy governance issue areas does
the IEA now address, and how? How has the IEA’s mis-
sion evolved in recent years, and how is it responding?
•In what ways is the agency affected by increasing
multipolarity and how is it responding to those
pressures?
•What challenges does this agency face from other
actors, such as other intergovernmental organizations
and civil society?
The article concludes with an assessment of the agency’s
efforts to position itself as the world’s key energy
organization.
The origins of the IEA
The IEA originated in response to the governance short-
comings that were abruptly revealed by the oil price
shocks of the early 1970s. Those shocks took two forms.
First, the Arab members of the Organization of Petro-
leum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) began to embargo
exports of oil to countries whose Middle East policies
they found objectionable. Shortly thereafter, OPEC as a
whole began raising oil prices, reflecting the members’
long-standing dissatisfaction with the revenues they had
been earning from their main resource. The major oil
Global Policy Volume 2 . Special Issue . September 2011
ª2011 London School of Economics and Political Science and John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Global Policy (2011) 2:SI doi: 10.1111/j.1758-5899.2011.00120.x
Research Article
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