COP31’s 35 by 35 Electrification Pledge Hinges on Cleaner Grids, Greenly Finds

Electric cars, heat pumps and electric boilers always remove fuel from the point of use. Whether they remove carbon depends on the power station at the other end of the cable. That is the central finding of a new study from the Greenly Carbon Institute. The institute is the research arm of Greenly, a Paris-based carbon accounting company. It examines the headline electrification goal that Türkiye will put to governments at COP31 in Antalya.

The Turkish presidency published the COP31 “35-by-35” pledge on 21 September. It asks countries to raise electricity’s share of global final energy use to 35 per cent by 2035. Greenly measured each of the 38 OECD economies and China against that benchmark. It then modelled the fossil fuel that electric equipment could replace and the carbon saved on each national grid.

Most of the OECD is far from the benchmark

Electricity supplied 25.1 per cent of OECD final energy use in 2023, according to the study. Only Iceland, Norway, Israel and Korea already exceed 35 per cent. The other 34 members would need to add 0.8 to 1.7 percentage points a year until 2035. That is several times their historical pace.

For those 34 countries to reach the line, about 6,500 terawatt hours (TWh) of fossil fuel a year would have to go. That needs some 2,400 TWh of extra electricity. The United States accounts for roughly half of both figures. Electric motors and heat pumps waste less energy. As a result, the same services need about 9.5 per cent less final energy in Greenly’s scenario.

The Climate Action Tracker estimates the goal needs electrification to accelerate almost four-fold. Current policies take the global share only to 28 per cent by 2035. Meanwhile, the International Energy Agency’s special report for the presidency puts it at around 30 per cent on today’s policies.

One target, three starting points

Greenly pairs each country’s electrification rate with the share of its power from renewables and nuclear. Read together, the two numbers split the OECD into three groups.

Austria, Denmark and Luxembourg run grids that are more than 84 per cent low carbon. Yet electricity supplies less than 23 per cent of their final energy. Their priority is replacing vehicles, boilers and factory equipment.

Israel, Korea and Japan sit close to or above 35 per cent. However, low-carbon sources supply only 11.8, 38.8 and 29.8 per cent of their power respectively. For them, clean generation comes first.

Poland, the United States and Germany face both problems at once. Poland’s electricity share is 16.7 per cent, with low-carbon power at 27.7 per cent.

Latvia shows why the gap alone can mislead. It is further from 35 per cent than Poland, at 20.8 points against 18.3. Still, Latvia generates 77.7 per cent of its power from low-carbon sources, nearly three times Poland’s share.

Same conversion, very different results

Greenly ran an identical conversion through each country’s 2023 grid. France keeps about 92 per cent of the potential carbon saving. Germany and the United States keep 41 per cent, Japan 14 per cent and Poland just 3 per cent.

China fares worst on Greenly’s model. Its emissions would rise, because coal-fired power would replace coal burned directly in industry. The study notes that coal still supplies around 60 per cent of China’s electricity. On its own statistical basis, the China Electricity Council puts the country’s electricity share at 28.8 per cent in 2024.

With new low-carbon supply, every economy in the study keeps around 90 per cent or more of the saving. The eleven economies at the bottom of the ranking hold most of the OECD’s displaceable fuel. Greenly also calls its table generous. The plant that supplies new demand is usually gas or coal, with above-average emissions.

“If the grid is not clean, electrification does not remove emissions: it moves them from the exhaust pipe to the power plant smokestack,” said Alexis Normand, chief executive of Greenly. “Without a clean-power condition, it is half a policy.”

An industrial race as much as a policy target

Germany would need to replace about 13 million boilers, or 1.3 million a year. The United States would need to replace 49 million. Greenly says Germany’s annual figure is several times its recent heat pump sales record.

Türkiye’s road target equals about 18 million car-equivalents, more than its entire car fleet. Because two-thirds of Turkish road fuel is diesel, the target depends on electrifying trucks, buses and vans. Factory output, installer numbers and grid connection queues set the pace, according to the study.

The IEA estimates that faster electrification could cut fuel importers’ bills by about $400 billion a year by 2035. In Türkiye, higher oil prices after the Strait of Hormuz crisis could add $5.2 billion to the road fuel import bill this year, Ember estimates.

What the pledge leaves out

The pledge text recognises that the use of clean electricity will differ by national circumstances. It does not require extra demand to be met from clean sources. Campaigners have seized on that gap. Claire Smith, senior international campaigner at Beyond Fossil Fuels, said the pledge leaves the backdoor open to more fossil fuel use.

The IEA reaches a similar view in its own report, warning that electrification alone will not meet climate targets. Samuel Guéret, a climate and energy policy analyst at Climate Analytics, backs the goal within a wider package. “The 35 by 35 target is critical for advancing action on climate change,” he said.

Greenly proposes four supply-side conditions for any credible pledge. Low-carbon generation should grow faster than electricity demand. Grid investment and permitting reform should move on the same timetable as vehicle and heating standards. Firm low-carbon capacity and storage should be sized for winter peaks. Accounting rules should credit new demand only against new clean supply.

Where the climate gain lands

The countries that gain most from rapid electrification already have clean grids, among them France, Switzerland and the Nordic economies. The picture differs for the United States, Germany, Japan, Türkiye and Poland. There, the value of the global electrification target rests on clean power and grids growing at least as fast as demand.

Governments meet in Antalya from 9 to 20 November. Without those supply-side conditions, Greenly concludes, the pledge still cuts fuel use at the point of consumption. It changes where emissions occur, with no guarantee that they fall.