COP climate summits might yet have a useful future – here’s how — SkimNews
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- COP31 opens in Antalya, Turkey, next week, co-hosted by Turkey and Australia, following the familiar cycle of leaders' ceremony, a quiet week of backroom talks, finance fights in the second week and a late-night showdown over wording — with an explicit warning it will not be the meeting that saves the world from climate peril.
- Paris Agreement implementation rules were largely completed by 2021, after which the COP cycle drifted into recurring arguments over finance and bewildering last-minute disputes over seemingly uncontentious wording; at last year's summit, countries could not agree even to mention fossil fuels in the final agreement.
- Turkish presidency is touting an electrification pledge under which countries would promise to increase electricity's share of their final energy consumption to 35% by 2035.
- White House — with disinformation rife and a climate denier still in the White House, the source argues electrification is the strongest available climate lever: high oil and gas prices and geopolitical instability make the energy-security case obvious, while cheap green power could ease cost-of-living pressures in high-income countries and unlock development in low-income nations.
- Jan Rosenow notes electricity currently provides about 23% of the energy delivered to consumers while powering sectors that make up 46% of the global economy, and his analysis finds a highly electrified world powered by renewables would cut total primary energy use — the raw inputs into the energy system — by almost 50%.
- China and Indonesia are ahead of both the US and UK on electrifying their economies, while India and Brazil are catching up fast, with the source arguing richer countries could learn by swapping energy-transition best practice instead of fighting over virtue-signalling statements.
- COP31 — efforts are under way behind the scenes to redesign the annual meetings as useful events for the clean energy transition, with the electrification push offered as a hint of what that redesigned format could look like.
Why it matters: For the Turkish presidency, the 35%-by-2035 pledge offers a concrete deliverable at a summit where even mentioning fossil fuels failed last year. For governments, the numbers frame the stakes: electricity already delivers 23% of consumer energy while powering 46% of the global economy, and renewables-powered electrification would cut primary energy use by almost 50%.
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