2026 IEA Ministerial Chair's Summary

The 2026 IEA Ministerial and the 297th session of the IEA Governing Board were chaired by H.E. Sophie Hermans, Deputy Prime Minister & Minister of Climate Policy and Green Growth of the Netherlands, on 18-19 February 2026 in Paris.

Context

Two years after the successful fiftieth anniversary meeting of the IEA in 2024, this meeting convened Energy Ministers from IEA Member countries, together with invited IEA Accession and Association countries, key partner countries, leaders from the IEA Energy Business Council (EBC), and representatives of international organisations and multilateral development and finance institutions.

Ministers acknowledged the role of the IEA as a key vehicle for advancing the energy goals of its Members for more than five decades, while evolving and adapting to new challenges. Ministers also acknowledged the strong leadership of IEA Executive Director Birol and reaffirmed the IEA Secretariat's role as a leading source of energy data and analysis. They stressed in particular the importance of the IEA Secretariat for multilateral cooperation and for supporting Member countries as they navigate the interaction between energy security, affordability and sustainability.

Ministers welcomed progress by countries seeking closer cooperation with the IEA, including: welcoming Colombia as the IEA's next Member country; Brazil beginning the IEA accession process; recent developments in India's membership discussions; and welcoming Vietnam as an Association Country.

Over the past two days, Members focused, in particular, on eight key priorities, highlighted below, against the backdrop of horizontal discussions on energy security, affordability and sustainability. Private sector representatives joined several sessions and presented their ideas at the Government-Industry Dialogue and the IEA Energy Innovation Forum, which was hosted as part of the Ministerial Meeting on the first day.

Topics

Energy Security

Ministers reaffirmed the IEA's central role in energy security. Its all-fuels and all-technologies approach, grounded in robust energy data and analysis, remains as crucial as ever, including for the shift to more domestically produced, electrified and sustainable energy systems.

Ministers took stock of the outcomes from the Summit on the Future of Energy Security (24-25 April 2025), convened by the IEA Secretariat and the United Kingdom. They recognised the importance of multilateral cooperation and that global energy systems face heightened and more complex risks, driven by geopolitics, supply chain vulnerabilities, extreme weather events and cyber security. Many Ministers recognized that accelerating the energy transitions offer opportunities to diversify energy sources, lower energy costs and enhance system resilience. They also stressed the need to scale up investments in a diverse range of energy sources and technologies to enhance resilience, affordability, sustainability and security. Ministers welcomed the IEA convening further dialogue on strengthening energy system resilience and enhanced international coordination on the topic.

Ministers noted that energy security is integral to national security and acknowledged the importance of ensuring diversification, predictability, affordability and international collaboration. Ministers emphasised the need for the IEA to continue to focus on energy security including emerging priorities, such as the growth in electricity demand, resilient and diversified supply chains, energy transition and infrastructure resilience, alongside the continued importance of oil and gas.

Ministers recognised the growth of electricity demand and electricity's expanding role in energy systems. Ministers highlighted different approaches in ensuring energy security and managing electricity systems differ across Members. The importance of cooperation, preparedness, flexibility and sufficient investments was highlighted by many, as was the role of renewables and dispatchable power, strengthened grids, storage, household appliances, demand-side measures, increased interconnection and innovation.

A large majority of Ministers stressed the importance of the energy transition to combat climate change and highlighted the global transition to net zero emissions in line with COP28 outcomes. In this context, a wide range of Ministers underlined that energy transitions are a means to enhance energy independence, security and affordability, decarbonisation, health, and other social benefits, and reiterated the importance of energy efficiency and meeting the renewable energy targets. They expressed strong interest in the IEA Secretariat's continued work on tracking progress of the energy transition and called for a continued focus on energy security, energy efficiency, renewable energy, affordability and emissions reductions, in line with the IEA's current focus.

Critical Minerals

Ministers recognised the strategic importance of critical minerals. They acknowledged progress under the IEA Critical Minerals Security Programme and highlighted risks related to supply concentration, export restrictions, and underinvestment in refining and processing - underscoring the need for diversified, resilient and responsible supply chains, improved data transparency and coordinated international action.

Through their Declaration Supporting the IEA's Work on Critical Minerals Security, Ministers called for strengthening IEA's role on critical minerals to improve emergency preparedness and the resilience and diversity of supply chains. Furthermore, Ministers identified shared priorities, including the need for international cooperation and mobilising investments along the value chain.

Ukraine

Ministers at the High-Level Dialogue on Investing in Ukraine's Future Energy Security reaffirmed their unwavering support for Ukraine and condemned, in the strongest possible terms, Russia's illegal war of aggression that has continued for four years, with an intensification of attacks on critical energy infrastructure in 2025. These attacks represent significant risks and have caused severe consequences to the lives of the civilian population as well as the front-line energy workers, and have continued to rise in both scale and intensity this winter.

Together with Ukraine's Minister of Energy, they discussed the dire energy situation in Ukraine and pathways to advance international coordination, including the G7+ Ukraine Energy Coordination Group. The interventions focused on the need to finance and support the reconstruction of Ukraine's energy sector, incentivise private sector investment, and its relevance of further integration with European energy markets and policies, in addition to discussing emergency needs, decentralisation and resilience.

The Ministers outlined several international efforts to support Ukraine's energy security. They also underlined the IEA's role in analysis, monitoring and coordination, and supported the IEA's efforts to further enhance cooperation with Ukraine through the IEA-Ukraine Collaboration Programme. Ministers requested that the IEA Secretariat continues to work with Members to support Ukraine and further intensify work on enabling investment in Ukraine's energy sector. A Joint Statement in Support of the IEA-Ukraine Collaboration Programme was issued by Ministers from current funders.

Energy Access and Clean Cooking

Ministers highlighted the importance of energy access to human development and economic growth. They stressed the need to accelerate progress to overcome the persistent global challenge of access to clean cooking solutions reaching every household, leading to economic prosperity, better health and equality for women and children, especially girls. Some Ministers also stressed the positive impacts on climate and sustainable development. Ministers mentioned that meeting this challenge requires implementation at scale. The path forward requires strong regulatory frameworks, finance and collaboration across governments, industry and financial institutions. Several Ministers also highlighted the potential of high-integrity carbon credits to mobilise additional finance for clean cooking.

Ministers recognised the IEA's strong leadership on this issue, including through the first Heads-of-State-level Summit on Clean Cooking in Africa in 2024 and a follow-up Summit in Nairobi later this year. Ministers welcomed the integration of the Clean Cooking Alliance within the IEA Secretariat as a special activity to accelerate delivery in African countries. Ministers noted the Access to Clean Cooking and Electricity Services Scenario (ACCESS) scenario unveiled in the last World Energy Outlook.

Nuclear Energy

Many Ministers noted the renewed interest in nuclear energy as a secure, low-emissions and dispatchable source to meet growing energy demand, considering full lifecycle aspects and nuclear safety. They underscored the need for a reliable, long-term vision to foster bankability of new projects, including small modular reactors, accompanied by market-appropriate incentives and clear government guidance to mobilise public and private investment, noting in particular the importance of designing incentives and policy frameworks suited to national electricity market characteristics. They also highlighted supply chain resilience, skill development of the workforce, cooperation among like-minded countries as key enablers of deployment and to achieve economies of scale and innovation.

In this context, a significant number of Member countries encouraged the IEA Secretariat to strengthen its analytical and advisory work on nuclear energy within an all-fuels, all-technologies approach, including monitoring market and policy developments, and supporting diversified supply chains and investment dialogue.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Ministers recognised artificial intelligence (AI) as a transformative technology for energy systems. They welcomed the IEA Secretariat's analysis and the Observatory on Energy and AI, while also noting AI's potential benefits, the need to meet growing electricity demand from data centres in a sustainable approach, including by accelerating the roll-out of electricity production and grids.

Ministers acknowledged the importance of deepening work on integrating data centres securely into power systems, addressing barriers to responsible AI adoption in energy, and improving measurement and reporting of AI's energy and resource needs. They also welcomed sustained dialogue with the technology and energy sectors, and called on the IEA to explore establishing a government-industry platform to this end. Moreover, they called on the IEA to continue to frequently generate data and analysis regarding the rapid development of AI.

Innovation

Ministers welcomed the outcomes of the IEA Energy Innovation Forum. They underscored the role of innovation, stable policies and public-private cooperation, with industry presenting new ideas and solutions to address energy security, competitiveness and transition challenges.

Ministers acknowledged the importance of strengthening coordination across the international innovation ecosystem. Ministers welcomed the decision for the Mission Innovation Secretariat to be hosted as a Special Activity within the IEA.

Strengthening global engagement, and IEA resources

Ministers welcomed the IEA Secretariat's continuous support for ambitious outcomes in key global fora, including the G7, G20, ASEAN, and others, such as those that are UN-related. They welcomed expanded engagement in Southeast Asia and acknowledged the excellent results achieved over the first year of activities of the IEA's Regional Cooperation Centre in Singapore. Ministers discussed and noted the importance of the IEA Secretariat's ongoing and growing work with emerging and developing economies through the Clean Energy Transitions Programme (CETP).

Finally, Ministers reiterated the critical importance of adequate, predictable and sustained funding for the IEA by its Members. They noted the growing role of voluntary contributions and welcomed increased focus on programmatic approaches to deliver priority work, and on voluntary contributions for institutional support (VCIs).