More than 30 members of the Energy Transitions Commission urged the COP31 climate summit presidency to prioritize electrification and industrial emissions cuts in its outcome, pressing for a 2035 electricity target.
In a letter dated Nov. 6, they asked COP31 President Murat Kurum and President of Negotiations Chris Bowen to support a goal of meeting 35% of final energy demand with electricity by 2035 and to develop national strategies to reach it. The commission puts electricity’s current share at around 20%.
The COP31 Presidency proposed the 35% benchmark in June as a collective global target within its Action Agenda. The signatories now want it reflected in the summit outcome.
The letter also calls for faster emissions reductions in steel, cement, aluminum, chemicals, aviation and shipping, with carbon pricing among the tools.
The ETC’s least-cost economics scenario assumes no additional policy changes and that technologies are adopted only when they are cost-competitive. It projects about 1,900 gigatons of carbon dioxide emissions through 2100 and warming of 2.6°C by that year. A package spanning clean electrification, a faster coal power phase-down, cuts in hard-to-electrify sectors, methane reductions and an end to deforestation could bring the commission’s warming estimate to around 1.8°C. The estimates are the ETC’s scenarios, not a consensus forecast.
The commission says electricity’s share of final energy demand would need to exceed 50% by mid-century, while coal’s share of global power generation would need to fall from about one-third to less than 5% by 2050. It says governments or private-sector organizations would bear costs from early coal retirements. Hard-to-electrify industries also face a green cost premium, which the ETC says may require carbon pricing or equivalent regulation.
The Associated Press reported that Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar estimated Türkiye’s planned energy shift would cost $500 billion across 13 years. He put the public-sector companies’ share at about $210 billion and cited coal-mining employment as a transition concern.
COP31 is scheduled for Nov. 9-20 in Antalya, Türkiye.
