New analysis from the International Energy Agency (IEA) 1 suggests this one deserves a closer look. It is simple, tangible and a business can translate it directly into its own operating decisions.
What is the target?
The COP31 hosts, Türkiye and Australia, have proposed raising electricity's share of global final energy consumption from 23% today to 35% by 2035, a goal the President-Designate calls "35-by-35". In its Special Report on Electrification, the IEA sets out a pathway to get there.
While 35% by 2035 is derived from the IEA’s existing energy sector pathway to global net zero by 2050, electrification has lacked a clear global goal to underpin it and drive co-ordinated action.
Why is it useful?
Three features make it particularly useful.
The first is the date. 2035 falls within the working life of assets boards are approving today and the life of a new private equity fund. For a management team, 2050 still belongs to their successors. 2035 also aligns to the likely target date for new interim targets now that 2030 is becoming less viable.
The second is that most of the target is already cost-effective. Based on 2025 technology costs, energy prices and financing conditions, the IEA finds electrification could economically reach around 33% of global energy consumption today. Around half of oil-based road transport could be electrified competitively now, rising to over four-fifths if battery prices keep falling. The same goes for half of global space heating demand and around 40% of energy used in low and medium-temperature industrial processes, such as food processing, textiles and paper. In Europe, capturing the cost-effective potential would lift electrification rates by almost 15 percentage points.
The third is that it measures something a company controls. A reported emissions figure depends on grid mix, supplier data and estimation methods. The electrified share of a vehicle fleet, a heating estate or a set of industrial processes is a count of assets and energy bills. It also bears on resilience: electric vehicles already avoid around 2.3 million barrels of oil demand a day, and the IEA estimates that its High Electrification Scenario would cut fuel importers' import bills by around a quarter by 2035, at a time when disruption in the Strait of Hormuz has shown what oil price exposure costs.
The IEA is clear that electrification alone will not meet climate goals, since its benefits depend on cleaner power, and that the barriers are real: upfront costs and access to finance, slow permitting and grid connections, concentrated critical mineral supply chains and a shortage of electricians and grid workers.
Our Low-Carbon Transition Index was built to look past the swings between hype and despair in transition newsflow and track what the leading indicators are actually doing. Electrification is one of our key indicator groupings, and the IEA has now given it a global benchmark.
What can you do with it?
For sustainability leaders, that makes it a strong candidate for a secondary target sitting under the net zero commitment: an electrified share for the company fleet, a heat pump programme across the estate, an electrification expectation written into supplier specifications. Banks can apply the same measure to asset finance books and lending portfolios, and private equity houses to the energy consumption (processes, vehicles, heating) across portfolio companies. Progress can be checked every year against a number the business controls, with context provided by the level of alignment to the global pathway to 2035.
So, the question for the next committee meeting is a practical one.
