The war in the Gulf has unleashed powerful market forces that the rest of the world can harness to accelerate electrification and keep the Paris climate agreement’s primary objectives on track. Doing so will not only mitigate climate change, but also strengthen economic resilience worldwide.
ISTANBUL—The cascade of shocks to the global economy over the past few months has offered a glimpse of our new reality. The Gulf conflict has taken an extraordinary—and dangerous—amount of oil, gas, and fertilizer off the market, and now a possible “super” El Niño cycle could bring more extreme weather. That means this year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference—COP31 in Antalya, Turkey—will come just as millions of people have been pushed deeper into energy and food poverty, forced to suffer truly terrible conditions as they endure more severe natural disasters.
These perils underscore the danger of continuing to depend on imported fossil fuels. Around 80% of the global population lives in countries that remain net importers of fossil fuels, and we have just witnessed how vulnerable this reliance leaves our economic security. Around the world, but especially in developing countries, the prices of essentials have spiked, financial conditions have deteriorated, and debt distress has spread.
This latest global crisis further reinforces the need for cleaner, more resilient sources of energy. Three years ago, at COP28 in Dubai, governments agreed that a just, orderly, equitable transition away from fossil fuels is a top priority. Now, we must come up with a roadmap to turn that high-level vision into a day-to-day reality.
To that end, my goal as president-designate of COP31 is to spark a global conversation about electrification. We must move from abstract debates to address the real decisions that ordinary people face. Think of the family considering whether to buy an electric car; the landlord installing solar panels, batteries, or heat pumps; the city planner investing in electric buses; or the paper producer electrifying its heating process.
This topic is critical, because while 45% of global direct emissions come from buildings, transportation, and industry, only around 20% of energy demand is met by electricity rather than direct fossil fuels. Thus, one of our core objectives at COP31 will be to forge an agreement on how everyone can contribute to a new global electrification target of 35% by 2035, and 50% by 2050.
These targets are not pulled out of thin air. The data show that they can be reached if policymakers heed the assessments by the International Energy Agency and the International Renewable Energy Agency of the steps needed to limit global warming to 1.5° Celsius above pre-industrial levels, as set out in the Paris agreement. That overarching ambition is now over a decade old, and this new target is an important stepping stone.
But simply electrifying daily life is not enough. We also must rapidly scale up renewables, so that electrified economies are powered by clean energy. We need expanded and resilient grids to manage the new load. And we need more financial support for developing countries to bring them along.
Previous COPs have set targets for each of these needs. At COP28, everyone committed to tripling the world’s renewable-power capacity by 2030. At COP29 in Baku, 74 countries recognized the need to boost energy-storage capacity sixfold, and to add or refurbish 80 million kilometers of grids by 2040. And donors committed to mobilizing at least $300 billion annually by 2035 for developing countries.
All these targets matter. Together, they form the architecture for the energy transition. They send strong market signals and provide a shared basis for rallying global collective action in a fractured world. They are meaningful precisely because they are “stretch goals”—ambitious but achievable.
In 2026, two additional developments give us hope. The first is the extraordinary collapse in the costs of essential ingredients like batteries and solar panels. Owing to this trend, Turkey has now provided permits for more battery storage than any EU member.
Second, historic events like the war in the Gulf can lead to historic movements, as the 1970s oil crises did by driving unprecedented energy-efficiency gains. The current crisis has unleashed powerful market forces that we can harness, at COP31 and beyond, to accelerate electrification.
There is no one-size-fits-all model. Each country will make a different contribution, and each sector will map out its own pathway. Africa’s challenges and opportunities are not the same as Europe’s. Electrifying transportation is not the same as electrifying industrial processes and buildings. No one can or should try to impose solutions on anyone else. But everyone must recognize that electrifying daily life is how we move away from fossil fuels. It is how we can make these volatile commodities superfluous. And it is how we can shield families from the effects of spiraling energy prices.
We will use the convening power of the COP presidency to focus minds, forge stronger partnerships, and move into implementation mode. Our world is in peril, and electrification is our salvation.
