Key points
- COP31 President-Designate Murat Kurum proposed a 35% global electrification target by 2035.
- The proposal was unveiled at the UN June Climate Meetings (SB64) currently underway in Bonn, Germany.
- The baseline target requires scaling electricity’s share of final energy demand from the current 20%.
- The COP31 action framework includes cutting growth in global waste by 50% within a decade.
- UN Climate Chief Simon Stiell warned that lingering fossil fuel dependency deepens economic instability.
Main Story
The incoming Presidency of the 31st United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP31) has unveiled a sweeping global electrification target designed to accelerate the phase-out of direct fossil fuel consumption across key industrial sectors.
Speaking at the UN June Climate Meetings in Bonn, Germany, COP31 President-Designate Murat Kurum proposed a collective international goal to increase the share of global final energy demand met by electricity from just over 20 percent today to 35 percent by 2035. Kurum, who serves as Türkiye’s Minister of Environment, Urbanisation and Climate Change, confirmed that building a high-level coalition to implement this “35 by 35” target will serve as a core thematic anchor when Türkiye hosts the Antalya Climate Summit this November.
Commissioned alongside co-hosts Australia, the electrification framework relies heavily on structural baseline data provided by the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). The strategy advocates for systemic transitions across transportation, buildings, and industrial manufacturing;chiefly through the rapid deployment of electric vehicles and heat pump retrofits. To complement the electrification drive, Kurum announced a stringent target under the presidency’s Resilient Cities priority, demanding a minimum 25 percent reduction in energy consumption intensity across the global building sector by 2035.
Beyond energy grids, the COP31 agenda introduces major cross-sectoral interventions aimed at halting short-lived climate pollutants. The presidency has set a target to halve the growth rate of global waste by 2035, directly targeting landfills where rotting organic matter generates immense quantities of methane.
Noting that food waste alone accounts for 10 percent of global greenhouse emissions, Kurum emphasized the urgency of curbing methane, which possesses a warming potency 80 times greater than carbon dioxide over a 20-year timeline. UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell backed the ambitious platform, stressing that transitioning toward clean electricity is the most viable path to shield vulnerable households from volatile, fossil-fueled cost crises.
The Issues
- Securing the massive $1.9 trillion in infrastructure financing required annually to transition emerging markets toward clean cooking and localized solar grids.
- Engineering national grids to absorb volatile supply surges as weather-dependent renewable energy underpins 35 percent of final energy demands.
- Standardizing multilateral waste management frameworks to effectively capture agricultural and municipal methane emissions at the source.
What’s Being Said
- Outlining the strategic protective value of the transition, COP31 President-Designate Murat Kurum noted: “By electrifying daily life, from transport to buildings and industry, we can protect families and businesses from volatile energy markets. This ’35 per cent by 2035′ target will be one of the defining priorities of our COP31 Presidency.”
- Warning delegates against backtracking on established Paris Agreement mandates, UN Climate Chief Simon Stiell stated: “Tackling the global climate crisis is the hardest, but most important thing humanity has ever tried to do together. We are not where we need to be. But we are somewhere we have never been before. We don’t have time to re-open past debates or renegotiate commitments already made.”
What’s Next
- Technical working groups in Bonn will spend the next week streamlining the text for the upcoming Global Goal on Adaptation.
- The IEA will publish a special roadmap detailing region-specific pathway metrics to achieve the 35 percent electrification baseline.
- Diplomatic envoys will convene in Fiji and Tuvalu for pre-COP sessions to refine the Pacific island clean energy transition framework.
Bottom Line
By pushing for a 35 percent global electrification benchmark alongside deep cuts to urban energy intensity and food waste methane emissions, Türkiye’s incoming COP31 presidency is attempting to shift international climate diplomacy from open-ended emission pledges to legally and structurally binding infrastructure targets.
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