As COP31 opens in Antalya, Turkey the centerpiece of this year’s UN climate summit is a deceptively simple number: 35. The COP31 presidency’s “35 by 35” pledge calls for raising electricity’s share of global final energy consumption from roughly 20% today to 35% by 2035. Supporters frame it as the most practical path to cutting emissions and shielding economies from volatile fossil fuel prices. The harder question is whether the infrastructure underpinning that vision the world’s transmission lines, substations and storage systems can be built fast enough. The COP31 Electrification pledge targets the sectors where fossil fuels still dominate: transport, heating and heavy industry. Together, these account for roughly 45% of direct global greenhouse gas emissions.
The International Energy Agency estimates that replacing fossil-fuel technologies with electric alternatives could cut emissions from these sectors by 40% by 2035, while reducing global oil demand by 18 million barrels per day and saving roughly $400 billion in fuel import bills compared with 2025 levels.
COP31 President Murat Kurum has pitched electrification as the “surest and cleanest” way to protect citizens from energy price shocks, a message sharpened by this year’s disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz. The logic appeals to energy-importing nations seeking insulation from geopolitical volatility.
The grid, however, is the bottleneck. IRENA has warned that electricity networks are “structurally unprepared” for electrification at this scale. Meeting the 35% target would require annual investments in grids, storage and related infrastructure to double from about $500 billion in 2025 to $1 trillion per year through 2035. Thousands of renewable-energy projects are already queued for grid connections, and storage capacity must expand rapidly to accommodate fluctuating wind and solar output.
The arithmetic on clean power is equally daunting. Renewables accounted for 31.7% of global electricity generation in 2024. To meet the 35% electrification target while keeping power supplies largely clean, that share would need to reach approximately 78% by 2035. Yet roughly one-third of global electricity still comes from coal. A coalition of more than 90 campaign groups has endorsed the target but warned that emissions benefits will be limited unless additional demand is met with clean energy and the transition is deployed equitably.
Divisions among negotiators are already visible. The European Union supports the goal but insists that electricity must come from low-emission sources, including wind, solar and nuclear. France has conditioned its backing on the target appearing in the conference’s final text. Developing countries argue that electrification will be unworkable without financial support, technology transfer and infrastructure investment, and they warn that expanded mining of lithium, cobalt and copper could create new environmental and supply-chain inequities.
India has stated it will not sign the pledge. Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav told reporters on November 3: “We are not going to sign any pledge. This is their agenda.” India’s priority, Yadav said, remains affordable and reliable energy access for its population, and any uniform global target must respect national circumstances. The pledge is a voluntary Action Agenda initiative outside the formal negotiating text, and India has argued that an electrification ratio does not necessarily measure decarbonization.
The politics are further complicated by the host countries themselves. Turkey holds the COP31 presidency, while Australia holds the COP31 negotiations presidency under an unusual power-sharing arrangement. Australia is a major coal and gas exporter. Turkey’s own national energy plan through 2040 encourages renewables and nuclear but sets no timeline for phasing out fossil fuels. Environmental groups have questioned the consistency of promoting electrification while presiding over economies still deeply tied to coal.
What happens next depends less on the headline number than on the fine print. The pledge, if adopted, would be non-binding and sits outside the formal negotiating text. Its real test lies in whether COP31 can pair the electrification target with commitments on clean generation and grid finance or whether “35 by 35” becomes another aspiration without the wiring to deliver it.
