Turkey Sets 35% Electrification Target as COP31 Host Country Benchmark
Ankara is pressing for electricity's share of global energy demand to nearly double by 2035, with an IEA roadmap expected to follow.
Turkey's environment minister Murat Kurum on Saturday (2026-06-27) called on countries worldwide to raise electricity's share of total final energy demand from roughly 20 percent — its current level — to 35 percent by 2035, framing the target as one of the defining priorities of Ankara's COP31 climate presidency. The International Energy Agency is expected to produce a dedicated report outlining how the target could be achieved.4
Kurum also called for global waste growth to be cut by 50 percent by the same deadline, though the electrification commitment dominated his remarks.4 Turkey, as COP31 host, is using the presidency to anchor a specific numerical benchmark before the formal summit, a tactic that can build expectation even before negotiations open.
The arithmetic behind the 35 percent figure is demanding. Electricity accounts for around one-fifth of global final energy demand at present — a share shaped by the persistence of fossil fuels in heating, road freight, shipping, and heavy industry. Moving that proportion to 35 percent within nine years would require sustained acceleration across all of those sectors simultaneously, at a pace faster than most national electrification plans currently envision.4
The IEA has already quantified some of what that scale implies. Power demand will grow at 3.6 percent annually on average between 2026 and 2030, the agency projected, driven by industry, air conditioning, electric vehicles, and data centers — one of the fastest sustained growth rates in 15 years. To keep pace with that demand increase alone, annual grid investment would need to rise by roughly 50 percent from current levels of around $400 billion, the IEA found.3
Achieving a step-change toward 35 percent electrification would require not just more generation capacity but a substantial expansion in the transmission and distribution networks that deliver power to consumers. Grid connection backlogs have emerged as a constraint in Germany, the United Kingdom, and parts of the United States, where new capacity waits years for approval and interconnection. Kurum's call effectively asks the IEA to quantify how large that problem is at the global level and what closing it would cost.3
The trajectory of coal will shape how much of the electrification expansion is clean. The IEA's Electricity 2026 report projected that coal's share of the global generation mix will slip as renewables and nuclear grow, with the combined share of clean sources expected to reach 50 percent of world power production by the end of this decade, with natural gas also growing its contribution.2 Renewable output alone is expected to expand by around 1,000 TWh annually through 2030, with solar photovoltaic accounting for more than 600 TWh of that gain.2
At the company level, some utilities are already moving at pace. Greek utility PPC announced in late May (2026-05-21) plans to nearly double its installed generation capacity to 24.3 GW by 2030, committing EUR 24 billion in investment and targeting around 2.4 GW of new renewable, flexible, and storage additions each year.1 The company ended 2025 with roughly 12.4 GW installed.1 Individual utility build rates do not translate directly into Turkey's global ambition, but they illustrate that at least some European operators are moving at a pace consistent with the aggregate growth the 35 percent target requires.
The next concrete signal is what the IEA produces. Kurum indicated the agency's report will set out the specific pathway; the assumptions it uses — on technology cost declines, grid investment timelines, and necessary policy frameworks — will determine how credible the 2035 target looks in practice rather than in principle.4 Countries that endorsed broad electrification commitments at earlier COP rounds have frequently faced gaps between pledged trajectories and delivered investment. Whether Turkey can use its presidency to narrow that gap will depend in part on how many large emitters treat the 35 percent figure as a planning input rather than an aspirational framing.