---
title: "Climate Negotiators Weigh a Target to Draw 35% of Energy From Electricity by 2035"
description: "The IEA’s chief wants a global goal on the COP31 agenda, but researchers warn of politics, trade barriers and hard-to-electrify sectors"
author: "rews desk"
published: 2026-10-04T11:05:53Z
modified: 2026-10-04T18:05:21Z
url: https://rews.cc/a/climate-negotiators-weigh-a-target-to-draw-35-of-energy-from-121be4
language: en
tags: ["energy", "infrastructure", "ai", "climate", "economy", "tech"]
publisher: "Rews (https://rews.cc)"
---

# Climate Negotiators Weigh a Target to Draw 35% of Energy From Electricity by 2035

*The IEA’s chief wants a global goal on the COP31 agenda, but researchers warn of politics, trade barriers and hard-to-electrify sectors*

By rews desk · October 4, 2026 · https://rews.cc/a/climate-negotiators-weigh-a-target-to-draw-35-of-energy-from-121be4

## In brief

- IEA chief Fatih Birol proposed a goal of 35% of final energy from electricity by 2035 in a recent UN speech
- The idea was discussed in Bonn in June and will be on the agenda at COP31 in Antalya, Turkey, in November
- Electricity supplied 23.4% of final energy in 2025, up from 16.7% in 2000, with China changing most and North America least
- Researchers warn that fossil-fuel politics, trade barriers and hard-to-electrify transport could slow the transition

One of the world’s top energy officials is pressing governments to commit to drawing 35 percent of the world’s final energy from electricity by 2035, a target climate negotiators will take up at the COP31 talks in Antalya, Turkey, in November.

Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency, closed a recent United Nations speech with the proposal, [Inside Climate News reported](https://insideclimatenews.org/news/01102026/inside-clean-energy-global-electrification-obstacles). Climate policymakers first weighed the idea in Bonn in June, and countries are now considering it alongside [a new IEA report on electrification](https://www.iea.org/news/leaders-discuss-potential-to-accelerate-electrification-at-cop31-iea-high-level-dialogue-in-new-york) prepared at the request of Türkiye and Australia. If adopted, Dr. Birol said, the target would “give a very strong and unmistakable signal” to the world about the path forward.

The shift so far has been real but slow. Electricity supplied 16.7 percent of final energy in 2000 and 23.4 percent last year, according to the IEA. China posted the largest change over that period and North America was among the smallest, a gap driven largely by renewable energy use and electric-car adoption. Some governments are paying for that switch directly: Sweden, for one, [now subsidizes rural drivers](https://rews.cc/a/sweden-pays-rural-drivers-up-to-120-euros-a-month-to-switch--d5e874) who trade gasoline cars for electric ones.

But energy-systems researchers warn against treating the trend as inevitable. “I see today’s energy system more as a Rorschach test,” said David Victor, a professor of innovation and public policy at the University of California, San Diego, meaning people read what they want into it. He doubts heavy trucks, ships and aircraft will electrify quickly, and he expects trade barriers to interfere as countries favor making goods at home over imports like Chinese solar panels. “The trade-offs are inescapable,” he said.

Emily Grubert, an energy systems researcher at the University of Notre Dame, framed the obstacle as political. “I think \[Birol is\] basically correct, but the reason we’re not seeing transition happening rapidly and naturally is that the ‘we’ he’s referring to is not the ‘we’ that actually makes the decisions,” she said in an email. Too often, she said, decision-makers put the profits of industries built on coal, natural gas and oil first, slowing the shift to cleaner sources. That describes many countries where fossil fuel interests hold political sway, the United States among them.

Kenneth Medlock III, senior director of the Center for Energy Studies at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, said the costs and benefits of electrification need to be fully evaluated before targets are set.

The first test of the idea comes soon. Negotiators open COP31 in Antalya in November.