He said this in his video address to the participants of the IAEA international ministerial conference "Nuclear Energy in the 21st Century", held in Washington.
“I believe we are in the middle of the first real global energy crisis,” TASS quoted him as saying.
According to Birol, Europe is "at the epicenter of this crisis."
“The upcoming winter will be difficult in terms of energy, but the next winter is 2023-2024.
“It will be even more difficult,” he said.
Earlier, the World Bank in its report predicted that natural gas prices in Europe will increase four times by 2024 compared to the average price for the previous five years.