‘35 by 35’: COP31's electrification goal will only cut emissions if grids decarbonise as fast as demand grows

Ahead of COP31, the Greenly Carbon Institute has published ‘35 by 35: Powering the Future’, a study measuring how far each of the 38 OECD economies and China stand from the Turkish presidency's proposed goal of supplying 35% of global final energy use with electricity by 2035. For each country, the study models the fuels that electric vehicles, heat pumps and industrial equipment could displace, the additional electricity required, the pace of equipment replacement and, above all, how much CO₂e is actually saved depending on what generates that electricity. 

This is Greenly’s first country by country assessment of the ‘35 by 35’ pledge proposed for Antalya: 34 of the 38 OECD economies are below 35% electricity in final energy use – reaching it means replacing 6500 TWh of oil, gas and coal a year by 2035, half of it in the United States. On today's grids, Germany, the United States, Japan and Poland would lose more than half of the climate gain; China's emissions would rise.