IAE Calls For New Masterplan To Tackle Energy Crisis

(MENAFN- Kuwait News Agency (KUNA)) BRUSSELS, March 9 (KUNA) -- Executive Director of International Energy Agency (IEA) Fatih Birol Thursday warned that the European industry is facing huge pressures due to the energy crisis, calling for a new industry plan.
Speaking at a press conference in the European Parliament in Brussels, he said the 'European industry is facing huge pressures, short, medium and longer terms, for two reasons.
'One, is the European economic model, which is based on abundant and cheap Russian energy supplies. It is over. It will not go back there,' he explained.
'So European energy will be on the higher side compared to its competitors in terms of gas, electricity prices with China, with United States,' he said.
The second pressure point, he noted, is that the world is entering a new industrial age; the age of clean energy, technology manufacturing.
However, Birol commended Europe for how it has weathered the energy crisis, particularly in terms of how it has reduced both its reliance on Russian energy and its emissions, while managing the social and economic impacts.
'Unlike many people have thought, including those in Kremlin, Europeans didn't freeze and European economy didn't collapse,' he said.
'On the contrary, the Russian oil and gas revenues declined by 40% in one year,' he added. (end)
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