COP31 wants the world running on electricity, but its target does not say the power has to be clean

The centrepiece of the COP31 climate summit is a number: 35. Türkiye, the summit’s host, wants electricity to supply 35% of the world’s energy consumption by 2035, up from about 23% now. Its COP31 president, Murat Kurum, has made the “35 by 35” pledge a central part of his presidency, saying “the age of electricity is taking shape”.

The problem, critics say, is what the pledge leaves out. The proposed wording says targets will differ according to countries’ starting points, and it does not require the new electricity to be clean. A country could plug more cars, heaters and factories into a grid that still runs on coal and still count it as progress.

That has turned a target meant to avoid the bitter fossil fuel fights of earlier summits into a fossil fuel fight of its own, as world leaders gather in Antalya from Wednesday.

Why does a power target matter so much?

Electricity is the easiest part of the energy system to clean up, because solar and wind already make it cheaply. Moving transport, heating and industry onto the grid is how most climate plans expect to cut oil and gas use.

The head of the International Energy Agency, Fatih Birol, said adopting the target would send a signal that “electricity is the future”. Analysts estimate that if the 35% were reached with clean energy alone, it would take about 0.3C off the at least 2.6C of warming the world is on track for under current policies.

Bowen, who is president of the COP31 negotiations, said the target might not sound like much to some people, but that it was ambitious. “We’re currently at 23 per cent,” he said, adding that getting to 35 would need more than a four-fold increase in the rate of electrification.

What do the critics want?

They want the target tied to clean power. Researchers at the University of Sussex, writing as the summit opened, said the pledge was silent on where the extra electricity would come from, and argued that electrifying and cutting fossil fuels are not interchangeable.

The gap matters because fossil fuels are not formally on the agenda at all. Brazil has presented a voluntary roadmap for moving away from them, but it sits outside the negotiations and has no timelines. UN Secretary-General António Guterres urged the Turkish and Australian presidencies to leave Antalya “with clear next steps” on that roadmap.

What is Australia pushing?

Australia is backing a separate, non-binding pledge to reach at least 300 million households with rooftop solar by 2030, roughly double today’s number. It commits countries to steps such as faster permits and better finance rather than a fixed share of power.

Australia endorsed the pledge at the pre-COP meeting in Fiji in October. On Tuesday, Bangladesh, Kenya, Nigeria, Palau and Vanuatu joined it.

For Australians, rooftop solar is familiar ground, and the pledge is an attempt to turn a home-grown habit into something the rest of the world copies. It also lets Australia champion clean power at a summit where its own heavy reliance on coal, like Türkiye’s, is never far from the conversation.

Who else is on board?

The Turkish presidency says more than 180 companies, including Volvo, Uber, IKEA and Siemens, with combined annual revenue of US$1.69 trillion, have backed faster electrification. An international alliance of power utilities raised its annual investment commitment from US$148 billion to US$156 billion.

The summit opened a day after new figures showed global fossil fuel emissions are set to fall 0.4% this year to 38.2 billion tonnes, the first fall since 2020, driven partly by high oil prices from the war involving Iran.