The IEA’s Hindsight Habit
Updated Aug 25, 2025
The International Energy Agency’s reputation rests less on foresight than on post‑hoc course corrections. Again and again, it has underestimated turning points, lowballed revolutions, and oversold smooth transitions. Coal refused to fade on cue, oil demand snapped back after COVID faster than its models allowed, and solar deployment sprinted while the IEA penciled in a jog. The pattern is familiar: reality accelerates while the forecast says “steady as she goes,” and the result looks like darts thrown in a gale.
Coal: Eulogies Premature
For years, coal’s obituary was a staple of IEA outlooks. Yet the agency is now edging toward a more reluctant admission: global demand peaked around 2023–2024 and will level off before any durable decline. That shift follows an inconvenient data point—2023 set a fresh high, with global consumption above 8.5 billion tonnes. After multiple “terminal decline” narratives, the funeral has been postponed.
Oil: Records After “Never Again”
In 2020, the IEA entertained the idea that oil demand might never reclaim its pre‑pandemic peak. A few years later, consumption printed new records—surpassing 2019 levels by 2023 and pushing higher into 2024—forcing another round of model rewrites. The storyline lagged the tape; the update arrived after the fact.
Forecasts, Narratives, and the Real World
Calling the IEA a forecasting agency can feel generous; too often it reads like a policy narrative shop with spreadsheets. A less flattering acronym might be “Infinitely Elastic Assumptions.” Like meteorologists promising clear skies in a downpour, the IEA tends to revise only once you’re already soaked—predicting sunshine, then issuing corrections after the storm.
The Bottom Line
When data diverge from policy dreams, the IEA often doubles down on the storyline while the numbers bulldoze through the assumptions. Investors and policymakers would be wise to treat IEA projections as scenarios—not oracles—and keep their eyes on the empirical signals that keep proving the models wrong.
IEA Forecasts: The Ministry of Misses in a World That Refuses to Behave
The IEA has built a legacy not on foresight but on hindsight. Time and time again, the International Energy Agency has missed inflexion points, underestimated revolutions, and overplayed transitions, whether it’s coal refusing to die, oil roaring back post-COVID, or solar skyrocketing. At the same time, they forecast a crawl, and the IEA’s predictive track record resembles a dartboard in a wind tunnel.
Calling them a forecasting agency feels generous. A better fit?
IEA = Infinitely Erroneous Assumptions or It’s Eventually Accurate
Take coal. After years of declaring its terminal decline, the IEA is now quietly walking back its funeral plans, suddenly saying coal will peak in 2024 and then plateau. This, after 2023, set an all-time demand record of 8.77 billion tonnes.
It’s the same story with oil. In 2020, they suggested demand might never return to pre-COVID levels. Fast-forward a few years, and demand is breaking records while their models scramble to catch up.
They’ve become the meteorologists of energy—predicting sunshine while it’s pouring, then issuing corrections after you’ve drowned.
When the real world deviates from policy dreams, the IEA doubles down on narrative, while the data bulldozes their assumptions.
1. Solar Power – A Decade of Denial (2000s–2020s)
The IEA repeatedly underestimated global solar capacity, year after year, despite falling costs and rapid adoption. From 2000 through 2020, they consistently projected flat growth, even as installations exploded. Their 2010 forecast for 2020 solar capacity was off by more than 500%.
Critics called it the “sun blindness syndrome.”
2. Coal’s Supposed Death – Premature Obituaries (2013–2024)
Since the mid-2010s, the IEA has frequently predicted that global coal use had peaked or was about to decline. Yet 2023 saw record coal demand at 8.77 billion tonnes, with Asia continuing to burn more, not less.
The IEA has quietly revised its stance to say coal will plateau, not fall, through 2027.
3. Underplaying Oil Demand Post-COVID (2020–2023)
IEA forecasts in 2020 claimed oil demand may never recover to pre-COVID levels. But demand bounced back faster than they predicted, hitting near-record levels by 2022.
Their mistake? Overestimating the speed of structural energy shifts and underestimating fossil fuel resilience.
4. Peak Oil Panic – Then Sudden Optimism (2000s)
In the early 2000s, the IEA fed fears of “peak oil,” predicting supply shortages and runaway prices. Then, post-2010, they did a 180, underestimating US shale production and missing the sheer scale of the fracking boom that transformed global markets.
They zigged when they should’ve zagged—twice.
5. Electric Vehicles – Always Slower Than Reality (2010s–Present)
Despite clear policy momentum and battery cost reductions, the IEA consistently lowballed electric vehicle adoption rates. Countries like Norway, China, and even segments of the US outpaced IEA timelines by years.
Their curve always lagged reality.
6. Natural Gas as a Bridge Fuel – Misjudged Demand Trends (2010s–2020s)
The IEA hailed natural gas as the “bridge to a cleaner future.” But demand patterns fractured: Europe’s gas crisis 2022, Asian LNG booms, and supply instability all challenged their smooth-transition narrative.
The bridge was shakier than they modelled.
7. China & India’s Energy Trajectory – Serial Misreads
Both nations repeatedly defied IEA expectations. The IEA often assumed linear decarbonization, yet both countries ramped up fossil fuel usage to sustain growth, even while building out renewables.
Economic reality trumped policy promises.
Conclusion:
In a world where energy is chaos and adaptation is survival, the IEA clings to order and gets blindsided by entropy. Their models are not just late—they’re a decade behind, trailing a world that pivots faster than policy can predict. The IEA doesn’t forecast; it narrates wishful thinking, confusing ideological inertia for inevitability.
Mass psychology craves certainty, so institutions like the IEA serve up illusions with graphs. But the contrarian watches the dissonance grow between what’s modelled and what’s material. That gap is where the real trend lives—not in the polished reports but in the stubborn rejections of reality they try to bury under revisions.
When the IEA admits coal isn’t dead or oil isn’t fading, the smart money has already moved on. Markets aren’t waiting for permission from Paris.
In short? Ignore the IEA’s forecasts. They aren’t maps—they’re rear-view mirrors on a bullet train headed off-script.
Rewriting the Rules of Insight
