COP31 electrification won’t cut CO2 without clean grids: Study
Ahead of COP31 in Antalya, the Greenly Carbon Institute published “35 by 35: Powering the Future.” The study measures how far each of the 38 OECD economies and China stand from the Turkish presidency's proposed goal of supplying 35 percent of global final energy use with electricity by 2035. For each country, the analysis models the fuels that electric vehicles, heat pumps and industrial equipment could displace, the additional electricity required, the pace of equipment replacement and how much CO₂e is actually saved depending on what generates that electricity. The institute asked how far each country is from 35 percent and how clean the power will be as more of the economy runs on electricity.
Electricity accounted for 25.1 percent of OECD final energy use in 2023, leaving 34 of 38 members below the 35 percent benchmark. Only Iceland, Norway, Israel and Korea exceed the target. Reaching the goal for the 34 countries below the line would require replacing 6,500 TWh a year of oil, gas and coal by 2035 and generating 2,400 TWh of additional electricity. The United States accounts for about half of both volumes.
Electrification delivers efficiency gains because electric motors and heat pumps waste less energy than internal combustion engines and fossil-fuel boilers. In the global scenario, 7.7 units of electricity replace 17.2 units of fossil fuel, cutting overall energy use for the same services by 9.5 percent.
CO₂e savings from the same conversion vary sharply with 2023 grid carbon intensity. France retains 92 percent of the saving while Poland retains 3 percent. Germany and the United States retain roughly 41 percent, Japan about 14 percent, and China would see emissions rise. When additional low-carbon electricity at 50 gCO₂e/kWh is supplied, every economy retains around 90 percent or more of the climate benefit.
The study groups countries by pairing electricity share with low-carbon power share. Clean-grid, low-electrification nations such as Austria, Denmark, Luxembourg, France, Sweden and Switzerland already exceed 84 percent low-carbon power yet remain below 23 percent electricity in final energy for several members; their priority is rapid replacement of vehicles, boilers and industrial equipment. Electrified but fossil-heavy grids in Israel, Korea and Japan sit at or near the 35 percent target on carbon-intensive power; their priority is cleaning generation. Double-challenge countries including Poland, the United States and Germany are far from the target and dependent on fossil plants, requiring simultaneous expansion of clean generation, grids and equipment replacement.
The volumes imply an industrial replacement effort on a large scale. Germany would need to install 13 million heat pumps by 2035, or 1.3 million per year, several times recent annual sales records. The United States would replace 49 million boilers. Türkiye's road-transport target equals 18 million cars, exceeding its entire current fleet and therefore depending on trucks, buses and vans.
Faster electrification could deliver $400 billion a year in fossil-fuel import savings by 2035 according to the IEA. For Türkiye, a Strait of Hormuz supply disruption could add $5.2 billion to the 2026 road-fuel import bill (Ember).
“35 by 35 makes smart use of the efficiency of electric technology. But if the grid is not clean, electrification does not remove emissions: it moves them from the exhaust pipe to the power plant smokestack. Without a clean-power condition, it is half a policy. Comparing countries by their distance to 35 percent alone misses the point. Some need to buy electric machines, some need to build clean power plants, and the largest emitters have to do both at once,” declared Alexis Normand, CEO of Greenly.
The Greenly Carbon Institute recommends attaching four supply-side conditions to the demand target: a low-carbon generation trajectory that outpaces electricity demand growth; grid investment and permitting reform on the same timetable as vehicle and heating standards; firm low-carbon capacity and storage sized for winter peaks; and accounting rules that credit new demand only against new clean supply.
Converted into vehicles and homes, the energy volumes demonstrate that the target requires an industrial mobilisation of factories, installers and grid connections that extends beyond policy measures alone.
