The International Energy Agency (IEA) will be pushing for faster and wider electrification at COP31 starting on Monday in Antalya, Turkey, as leaders and policymakers gather for the climate summit during an unprecedented global energy crisis.
Analysis by the IEA is informing the COP 31 Presidency’s goals on electrification; zero waste and methane; energy efficiency and resilient cities; and energy access and clean cooking, the agency said on the eve of the start of the summit.
“Türkiye’s COP31 Presidency is placing a strong emphasis on accelerating action across several energy priorities, including the 35-by-35 electrification ambition, zero waste and methane, efficient buildings and resilient cities, and clean cooking and energy access,” the IEA said.
Weeks before the summit, the Paris-based agency published a special Electrification report, requested by Turkey and Australia to inform COP31 discussions. The report found that cost-effective technologies can bring the proposed 35% electrification target within ‘striking distance’, the IEA said in September.
Based on technologies available today and energy prices at the levels seen before the onset of the current supply shock, the report finds that electricity could cost-effectively meet 33% of the world’s final energy consumption by 2035, up from 23% at present, according to the IEA’s report.
This would put the 35% goal that is under discussion within striking distance.
“Energy prices at their current levels, amid the Strait of Hormuz crisis, would make even more of the world’s energy consumption cost-effective to electrify,” the agency noted.
If countries speed up electrification in light of this year’s energy crisis and soaring fuel costs, fuel-importing countries could see their energy import bills drop by more than $ 400 billion combined by 2035 compared with 2025 levels.
“By then, faster electrification could mean the world is using 18 million fewer barrels of oil per day than it would have done otherwise, mainly the result of a rapid uptake of electric vehicles in this scenario,” the IEA said.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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