Energy crisis today worse than 1970s: IEA

The worst may be yet to come, but renewable energy sources are more readily available than in the 1970s, writes Kevin Morrison

The global energy crisis triggered by Russia's invasion of Ukraine has had a larger impact on energy supplies than the oil crises in the 1970s, consumer country organisation the IEA's executive director Fatih Birol has said.

"We are in the middle of the first global energy crisis," Birol told delegates of the Sydney Energy Forum. "The world has never witnessed such an energy crisis in terms of its depth and consequences. It is interwoven by many factors including geopolitics, and I believe we may not have seen the worst of it yet. This winter in Europe will be very, very difficult."

The effects of the Arab oil embargo in 1974 and the Iranian revolution in 1979 were limited to oil. "Today we have a crisis with oil, gas and coal where all of their prices are going up," Birol said. "It is all to do with Russia, as on [the day the invasion began], Russia was the number one oil exporter of the world, the number one gas exporter and a major player in the coal market. As a result, we are seeing the entire energy system is going through a crisis."

But another contrast to the 1970s is the availability of clean energy technologies in the world today, Birol said. The share of renewables — especially solar power — in the global electricity supply is steadily increasing. "In 2019 only 2pc of new car sales were electric cars, this year in 2022 we are going to see almost 15pc of all the cars sold in the world being electric cars," Birol said.

The oil crises of the 1970s prompted massive increases in fuel efficiency and, in a similar way, today's energy crisis will prompt a response from energy consuming countries. "The current situation may also be a turning point in the history of energy," Birol told delegates. "The drivers for a clean energy future today are economic realities, climate commitments and at the same time national energy security." That said, "[we] are going to see some tension in some countries on how they are going to align their national energy security demands with climate demands. But countries should not lock in large-scale fossil fuel investments," Birol noted.