Fatih Birol had big dreams of becoming a footballer or a filmmaker when he was younger. Birol, ever the football fan, sees his organisation as an 'honest referee' who tells the world 'what is right, what is wrong'.
"There are different views but the rigour of our analysis is not questioned," said the Turkish energy expert, who has worked at the IEA for two decades and became its executive director in 2015.The IEA caused a stir in 2021 when it published a roadmap to reach the Paris Agreement goal of having a carbon neutral world by 2050 and limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
The report has opened the window of"what is deemed possible" in the rapid deployment of low-emissions energy, said Gernot Wagner, a climate economist at Columbia Business School. Some climate campaigners have described him as an"unexpected hero" in the movement against global warming.Such an image may have once seemed unlikely for a man who worked for six years for the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries , the Saudi-led oil cartel.
"The real friends say the bitter truth. Instead of feeling upset, it's a wake up call for them to diversify their economies, not to focus their economies only on the oil income," he said.Birol has also pushed for change within the IEA, too, through a"modernisation strategy" that include opening the organisation's door to emerging countries such as Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa.
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