In recognition of the pivotal role that Fatih Birol, the executive director of the International Energy Agency played in the agency, Nick Butler from the international daily, The Financial Times named him Energy Personality of the Year 2017.
Butler, in his Energy Personality Of The Year: Fatih Birol, IEA article, hailed Birol as playing a key role in the agency's achievements.
Butler said that over the last decade, the International Energy Agency has made itself an indispensable source of facts and ideas.
'This achievement is due to the work of many people within it, but the key role has been played by Faith Birol, formerly chief economist and now executive director. He is my energy personality of 2017,' he stated in the article.
Butler explained why he chose Birol as the Energy Person of the Year.
'Carbon emissions, virtually ignored until the 1990s, have become a serious global policy concern. To the credit of its member states, the IEA, particularly under the leadership of Birol, has kept up with all those changes,' Butler stated.
Underlying the importance of the agency and its function in the global energy market, he said that the agency without neglecting its core mission has skillfully extended the definition of energy security to match the realities of climate change, urban air quality and access, or rather the lack of it, to energy.
By Gulsen Cagatay
Anadolu Agency
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