As delegates arrive in Antalya for COP31, Turkey is pushing for an ambitious electrification pledge to sit at the heart of the summit’s final deal — a proposal supporters say could speed the move away from fossil fuels, but critics warn may not automatically deliver the emissions cuts the world needs.
Days into the start of the two-week United Nations conference, the host nation is urging governments to back a target to electrify 35% of the global economy by 2035, up from roughly a fifth today. Turkey announced the pledge even before talks formally opened yesterday in the Turkish Mediterranean city.
Now Ankara is seeking wider backing to have the goal written into the conference’s outcome text, according to a person familiar with the matter.
A spokesperson for Turkey’s COP31 President Murat Kurum did not respond to a request for comment.
The conference’s leaders called on the nearly 200 countries represented to move faster to stem global warming
The electrification push is designed to curb planet-warming emissions by accelerating the replacement of petrol and diesel vehicles and fossil fuel-heated furnaces, boilers and cookstoves — as well as other equipment that releases greenhouse gases — with electric alternatives.
But climate advocates, along with some Turkish villagers living near one of the country’s coal mines, have criticised the proposal, arguing it fails to require that the additional electricity come from low-carbon sources.
“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, CEO of Greenly, a Paris-based carbon accounting company.
Turkey and Australia rely on coal
The dispute draws attention to the power systems of the two nations steering COP31.
Turkey, hosting the summit, and Australia, which is leading the negotiations, both generate substantial electricity from fossil fuels.
Coal produced about a third of Turkey’s electricity last year and more than 40% of Australia’s, according to government data.
Australia’s COP31 team, which is led by Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen, did not provide comment in response to a Reuters request.
Several countries, including South Pacific island nations that face acute risks from sea-level rise, have been among those broadly urging a clearer pathway away from fossil fuel use.
Turkey and Australia both rely on fossil fuels for electricity
Portugal — one of Europe’s leaders in renewable energy share — said it plans to argue that any electrification target should be explicitly tied to low-carbon power.
“Our proposal is not simply electrification, but clean electrification. That means electricity from renewable sources rather than fossil fuels,” Portugal’s Environment Minister Maria da Graca Carvalho told reporters in Lisbon.
As COP31 got underway, the conference’s leaders urged the nearly 200 countries at the talks to accelerate action to rein in global warming, pointing to climbing temperatures and intensifying climate-driven disasters.
An October report from the United Nations Environment Programme said the world is already on track to exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming above pre-industrial times — the threshold set at the 2015 Paris climate conference — and said steep emissions cuts are needed to bring temperatures back down.
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