By Aleksandar Popovic
Launched in June 2026 at the Bonn Climate Change Conference, the Turkish presidency of COP31’s flagship 35-by-35 Global Electrification Pledge aims to raise electricity’s share of global final energy consumption to 35 per cent by 2035. The pledge was promoted again in September during New York Climate Week, ahead of the UN climate conference in Antalya in November. Analysis from the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) supports the target. Under IRENA’s revised 1.5°C Scenario, electricity’s share of global final energy consumption rises from around 23 per cent in 2023 to 35 per cent by 2035 and more than 50 per cent by 2050.
The pledge recognises that every country starts from a different place. It concentrates on what a higher share of electricity in national economies depends on, namely renewable energy generation, energy storage, system flexibility and resilient grids, while prioritising international cooperation and financial support for developing nations.
The presidency plans a set of initiatives to help countries electrify buildings, transport and industry. They include a global mechanism to track electrification progress, platforms for knowledge sharing and capacity development, support to make national grid plans ready for investment, including sustainable finance, platforms for better-connected international freight transport, a buildings compact to cut energy-use intensity by at least 25 per cent by 2035, partly through electrification, and matchmaking platforms to help least developed countries (LDCs) access finance for industrial decarbonisation.
Electrification of sectors
Electrification means replacing technologies that burn fossil fuels, such as petrol cars, gas boilers and coal-fired furnaces, with ones that run on electricity, ideally generated from renewable sources. Electricity already powers much of the world economy, and its role is growing. The IEA estimates that global demand for electricity is expanding faster than total GDP and at roughly double the pace of overall energy demand. Electric power already energises home and commercial appliances, heating and cooling systems, adaptable industrial manufacturing, and an expanding fleet of electric vehicles. Broadening electrification across economic sectors boosts efficiency and competitiveness, decreases dependence on fossil fuels, enhances energy security, and reduces carbon emissions.
This growth must rest on renewable power, the main route to phasing out fossil fuels in transport, industry, and buildings and to meeting the 1.5°C goal. It takes two forms: direct electrification means switching from fossil-fuel technologies to electric equivalents across transport, buildings and manufacturing, while indirect electrification uses clean power to generate green hydrogen and e-fuels for sectors where going fully electric is still a technical or financial hurdle. Electric technologies are more efficient than combustion-based alternatives, and digitalisation, storage and smart grids make renewable energy systems more flexible and reliable.
Figure 1: Electrification rates by sector in selected regions under IRENA’s 1.5°C Scenario, 2023, 2035 and 2050. IRENA (2026), World Energy Transitions Outlook 2026: 1.5°C Pathway.
The buildings sector offers one of the largest near-term opportunities for electrification. Under the IRENA 1.5°C pathway, clean power is projected to meet 77 per cent of its total energy needs by 2050. Faster rollout of heat pumps, electric cooking, water heaters and high-efficiency appliances, supported by stronger building codes and regulations, can cut emissions and energy demand while lowering costs and improving indoor air quality. The gains are greatest in developing regions, where replacing traditional biomass or coal with modern electric solutions improves health and living standards and supports economic growth.
Transport is expected to be the fastest-electrifying sector, with electricity’s share of transport energy rising from just 1.5 per cent today to nearly 50 per cent by 2050. Growth will come from electric-vehicle adoption in advanced economies, expanded electric transit, and smart, fast charging. The shift needs heavy investment, with transport accounting for roughly 90 per cent of all global electrification investment needs through 2050. Meeting these goals across both G20 and developing nations will require larger battery supply chains, extensive AC and DC charging infrastructure, joint grid and transit planning, supportive policy frameworks and targeted finance.
Industry has more varied energy needs, from light manufacturing to high-temperature heat in energy-intensive industries such as steel, cement and chemicals. Electricity should supply around 40 per cent of industrial energy by 2050, driven by the rollout of electric motors, industrial heat pumps, electric furnaces and electrochemical processes. While economies with lighter industrial footprints can rely mostly on direct electric power, heavy industries will require a tailored mix that includes green hydrogen and synthetic fuels for hard-to-abate processes. This shift needs targeted industrial policies and finance that support innovation, protect industrial competitiveness and build strong domestic supply chains.
Electricity grid infrastructure
None of this sectoral electrification can happen without much larger power networks, which puts transmission and distribution at the centre of the global transition. Carrying large volumes of clean power from remote wind and solar farms to cities requires a major expansion of high-voltage transmission lines. At the same time, local distribution grids need modernisation and digitalisation to handle two-way power flows from rooftop solar, EV fast-charging networks and industrial heat pumps without overloading local circuits.
Under IRENA’s 1.5°C pathway, annual spending on power grids needs to average more than USD 1 trillion through 2050, nearly USD 29 trillion in total. Electrification also depends on energy storage, projected to reach nearly 6,900 GW by 2050, to make the system more flexible and manage peak demand. Building and operating these assets requires faster permitting, agile regulatory frameworks, a skilled workforce, larger local supply chains, affordable financing, and committed international cooperation.
Why grids in developing countries struggle to attract finance
Grids have fallen behind the power plants they are meant to connect. The IEA estimates that around USD 400 billion is now spent on grids each year, against about USD 1 trillion on new generation. At least 3,000 GW of renewable projects are waiting to connect to national grids, 1,500 GW of them at an advanced stage, and new grid infrastructure often takes five to 15 years to plan, permit and build, compared with one to five years for a solar or wind farm.
The gap is widest in emerging and developing economies, where most grids belong to state utilities with weak finances. Tariffs are often held too low to attract investment, and lenders judge these utilities largely on their government’s credit rating. Governments carrying heavy debt have little room to offer the guarantees that lenders ask for, and private investors are wary of currency swings and of taking on demand risk they cannot control. Public money still covered about two-thirds of transmission spending in these economies in 2022. The IEA also names access to finance and the high cost of capital as major barriers, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. Africa, home to 20 per cent of the world’s population, receives 2 per cent of global clean energy investment, and its debt servicing costs this year are equivalent to more than 85 per cent of its total energy investment.
Countries that want to electrify faster will need tariff and regulatory reform, credit enhancement and currency hedging, and concessional finance for the grid projects that private capital will not touch. They will also need well-prepared projects. The pledge’s support for grid readiness will count for more if it pays for that preparation.
E Co’s work in the sector
E Co. has helped clients around the world finance cleaner electricity and its use in buildings, transport and industry, mostly by designing projects and programmes for the Green Climate Fund (GCF), the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and the Mitigation Action Facility. In West Africa, we originated and prepared the BOAD Climate Finance Facility to Scale Up Solar Energy Investments in six francophone countries, which the GCF approved in 2019 with USD 65.9 million in GCF funding. We also prepared the funding proposal, feasibility study and economic analysis for the African Development Bank’s Desert to Power G5 Sahel Facility, approved in 2021, which combines USD 150 million from the GCF with other finance in a programme worth almost USD 1 billion for solar power across the Sahel.
In transport, we developed the GEF project concepts for UNIDO’s electric mobility projects in Tunisia, Albania and Jordan, and helped UNIDO design a climate-smart transport project in Malaysia, including a strategy to scale up electric mobility in the country. In Kazakhstan, we prepared the GEF project for UNDP on De-risking Renewable Energy Investment.
Alongside project design, our team supports bilateral development agencies, multilateral development banks and private investors with market assessments, feasibility studies and policy work. A recent study for GIZ examined how low energy prices in the Western Balkans, Eastern Europe, the South Caucasus and Central Asia hold back renewable energy and energy efficiency.
Countries will only reach the 35-by-35 target if the pledge is matched with climate finance, stronger institutions and well-prepared projects, and E Co. supports governments and investors from planning and project design through to securing that finance.
