In recent years, energy has been elevated to a core issue of national and economic security. Global supply chain disruptions after the Covid‑19 pandemic, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, trade restrictions on key products including critical minerals, several years of extreme heat affecting energy systems and conflicts affecting major energy suppliers have unfolded in successive waves over the past five years. These events have brought long-standing energy security concerns back into sharp focus while exposing new vulnerabilities. They also highlight energy’s central role in geopolitics, with recent shocks driving an exceptionally active period of energy policy-making across both conventional and emerging dimensions of security, reminiscent of the wide-ranging and extensive policy responses to the oil crises of the 1970s.

While no single narrative defines the shifts seen in 2025 in energy policy, the cost of living, competitiveness and resilient supply chains emerged as central themes alongside long-standing policy priorities relating to energy security, efficiency and sustainability. State of Energy Policy 2026 draws on the IEA’s Global Energy Policies Hub, which tracks more than 6 500 measures across 84 countries and more than 200 policy types, highlighting where recent policy changes represent a major shift from longer-term policy trends.

Emergency measures to manage oil and natural gas supply disruptions are now legally in place in 60 countries. Since the 1970s, IEA members have been required to hold emergency oil reserves. Today, countries accounting for 95% of global oil imports have adopted stockholding and emergency response legislation, with requirements varying from 16 to 90 days of net imports. More recently, natural gas stockholding requirements have expanded, with gas storage requirements and strategic buffers adopted in close to 30 countries since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Such measures are now in place in importing countries accounting for more than 40% of natural gas imports, compared with 11% in 2010. Disruptions resulting from the conflict in the Middle East have prompted the use of these emergency measures, including the collective action decision of 11 March 2026, which made 400 million barrels of oil from IEA emergency reserves available to the market. The current disruption has also triggered announcements of new and strengthened emergency storage capacity, notably in Indonesia and Viet Nam, as well as exceptional demand-restraint measures, including energy conservation campaigns, work‑from‑home policies and fuel rationing.

Decades of policy efforts have diversified countries’ energy mixes and suppliers and improved efficiency. Fuel diversification efforts, also rooted in the energy crises, are now present in 150 countries, up from fewer than 20 in the 1970s. As a result, major economies now have more diversified energy mixes and supplier bases, reflecting increased deployment of renewables, nuclear power, fuel-switching policies, efficiency standards and performance regulations. Since the first energy efficiency regulation in 1975, more than 130 countries have adopted minimum energy performance standards, with more than 80% of global energy demand for cooling and industrial motors now covered by some form of efficiency standard.

The market concentration of critical minerals and key energy technologies has emerged as a strategic vulnerability. Governments are taking steps to address concentration in energy technology manufacturing, particularly for solar panels, batteries and other clean energy technologies, where the largest supplier accounts for more than 70% of manufacturing capacity for many key components. Geopolitical frictions have heightened these risks. Eleven of the 20 critical minerals essential to the energy sector were subject to export controls at some point in 2025, and 45 new policies affecting trade in key clean energy technologies were implemented in addition to the broad-based tariff measures implemented by the United States in 2025. Supply chain disruption risks also extend to other energy equipment, including transformers, gas liquefaction technology and other power electronics, though policy responses in these areas have been more limited.

Governments have introduced manufacturing incentives and trade measures in an effort to diversify supplies of critical minerals and key energy technologies. In 2025, 35 new policies affecting critical minerals were adopted in 19 countries, focusing on financial support for production, refining or recycling. Even so, most countries still have considerable scope to enhance emergency preparedness, including through stockpiling. Only four countries currently maintain formal stockpiling requirements for energy-related equipment, and many others are exploring their introduction. Public investment in advanced clean technology manufacturing has increased more than ten‑fold since 2010, making up roughly 12% of total investment in clean energy technology manufacturing facilities, equivalent to USD 24 billion.

Direct financial support for energy peaked during the previous energy crisis and remains at historically high levels. In 2025, energy-related provisions are estimated to reach USD 405 billion annually, representing 1.4% of total government expenditure in that year, up from 0.8% just a decade earlier. Some countries, including the United Kingdom, Germany and Japan, saw much higher shares, nearing 3% or more. Much of this growth was linked to policy responses following the Covid-19 pandemic, when energy investment measures were expanded in many recovery packages. Several of those provisions were revised downward in 2025, including the repeal of some energy-related tax credits in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in the United States, the scheduled end of funding linked to the European Recovery and Resilience Facility and the phased reduction of renewables subsidies in China. Together, these changes reduced anticipated annual government energy spending from 2025 to 2030 by one‑quarter compared with 2024 expectations.

Government energy spending is set to remain elevated through 2030. Even before the outbreak of the current conflict in the Middle East, government energy spending was expected to remain above 2019 levels through to 2030. Since then, many governments have launched new emergency measures to manage the impacts on energy markets, often pushing 2026 spending above budget expectations. The IEA will continue to monitor policy responses and government affordability interventions, as it did during the 2022 energy crisis.

Emergency energy affordability measures have added significant budgetary burdens and historically have not been targeted at the consumers most in need. Following the 2022 energy crisis, governments introduced emergency energy affordability support and disbursed around USD 220 billion to households between 2022 and 2023, roughly ten times pre‑crisis annual support levels. Renewed energy price volatility linked to the conflict in the Middle East is prompting new measures. Only 25% of short-term interventions since 2022 have targeted vulnerable households most exposed to price shocks, increasing the strain on national accounts. Similarly, long-term investment incentives to reduce households’ exposure to price volatility, particularly in road transport, have often lacked targeting. In 2025, only about one‑quarter of incentives for efficient or alternative-fuel vehicles were targeted, in line with short-term measures.

Many governments have shifted to market-based support schemes, particularly for solar and wind, helping to reduce fiscal burdens. Since 2010, about 20 governments have moved away from administratively set pricing schemes towards more market-based mechanisms as the cost of wind and solar projects has continued to decline. Auctions and market-based support mechanisms are now expected to account for nearly 60% of gross capacity additions from 2025 to 2030, based on the current pipeline of projects. This shift has gradually decoupled government spending from investment growth. Between 2021 and 2025, government investment in power generation and transmission rose by 8% annually, while private sector investment grew 16% per year.

Following a period of setbacks, policy momentum on clean cooking and electricity access is building, particularly in Africa. Limited fiscal latitude and affordability pressures, compounded by disruptions during the Covid-19 era, slowed progress on energy access from 2020 to 2024. Political momentum has returned as energy access moved back to the forefront of the international agenda and has been supported by increased international finance flows. Governments have reinvigorated domestic efforts, with 56 new electricity access policies implemented or announced since the 2024 IEA Summit on Clean Cooking in Africa, alongside 64 new clean cooking initiatives. Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for the majority of this renewed activity, with countries home to 70% of African people living without electricity access and 90% of those without clean cooking adopting new energy access policies over the past year.

Disruptions arising from the conflict in the Middle East are threatening progress, especially for clean cooking. Following the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, liquefied petroleum gas import prices increased by an average of 80% in March 2026 in developing economies where it is widely used for cooking. This rise prompted many governments to take steps to stabilise prices, often straining public finances or the finances of local energy companies. Some countries have implemented emergency demand-restraint measures, increased domestic production, rationed non-essential uses of liquefied petroleum gas and encouraged fuel switching where possible.

While some countries have introduced more stringent efficiency standards, broader regulatory rollbacks, particularly in the United States, were the dominant force in 2025. Last year, regulatory rollbacks outweighed measures that increased stringency or coverage, with 30% of energy consumption under regulation experiencing some form of rollback, compared with 17% subject to new, stricter rules. The most significant changes occurred in passenger cars, driven primarily by the resetting of fuel economy standards in the United States, affecting roughly one‑fifth of end-uses covered by minimum efficiency standards, and by delays to compliance timelines for new vehicle emissions standards in the European Union. Carbon pricing schemes were also revised, in part due to greater scrutiny of energy measures that could affect household bills and industrial competitiveness. The most significant shifts occurred in buildings and transport fuel pricing, through the elimination of consumer carbon prices in Canada, the delayed implementation of the European Union’s Emissions Trading System 2 from 2027 to 2028 and evolving discussions on carbon border adjustment measures.

As a result, mandated energy efficiency improvements are expected to progress at a slower pace through to 2030. Global coverage and stringency of energy efficiency and fuel-switching policies are expected to rise by 30% over the next five years. Without the relaxed, delayed and rolled back regulations introduced in 2025, energy efficiency stringency would have increased by 50%. While intended to ease short-term cost impacts, these changes could leave households and businesses more exposed to energy price swings in the future.

The latest climate pledges, in aggregate, do not imply an acceleration in mitigation in the energy sector by 2035 compared with previous commitments. Overall, policy shifts in 2025 have tempered the pace of future emissions reductions, even though climate objectives remain a stated priority in many countries. As of April 2026, 65 of the 194 parties to the Paris Agreement had yet to submit new nationally determined contributions (NDCs) setting mitigation goals for 2035. Among those that had submitted new NDCs, more than 80% set out targets implying similar or slower rates of decline in energy-related emissions than those envisaged in their earlier NDCs with 2030 targets. If the energy component of all NDCs were met, energy-related emissions would decline by 0.3% annually until 2035. These mitigation levels are broadly comparable with the IEA Stated Policies Scenario, which projects global energy-related emissions declining by 0.8% annually.

While most government responses as of April 2026 have focused on emergency measures, past shocks have often triggered more structural shifts in energy policy. Many countries are building on existing policy foundations to reduce long-term dependence on oil and gas imports, curb exposure to fossil fuel price volatility and accelerate the shift to low-emissions alternatives, alongside a near-term return to domestic coal in some jurisdictions. As of April 2026, 150 countries have active policies to advance renewable and nuclear deployment, 130 have energy efficiency and electrification policies, and 32 have policies to incentivise supply chain resilience and diversification across critical minerals and clean energy technologies. Unlike in the 1970s, the technological and policy foundations are now in place to enable faster and more substantial reductions in oil and gas consumption. Governments may also reinvigorate energy innovation for alternative fuels and greater efficiency, reversing the decline in spending on energy research and development since 2023. The IEA will continue to track policy responses to the current crisis, offering insight into how these evolving measures could reshape long-term energy trends and strengthen global energy security.