Cop31’s 35% Electricity Target Raises the Fossil-Fuel Stakes

By Olivia Hart

Cop31’s proposed 2035 target would draw 35% of final energy from electricity, placing coal and other fossil fuels at the center of negotiations over the summit’s final climate decision.

The figure remains unresolved. The summit’s preliminary text carries a suitably elastic name: “reflections.” The Australian co-presidency’s document records proposals submitted since Monday and offers only a loose basis for the first draft of the “cover decision,” the final negotiated document gavelled through at the summit’s close and likely to be its central outcome.

What must the final decision contain?

Negotiators are seeking four main elements:

• Set a 2035 target for electricity to provide 35% of final energy.
• Cut methane emissions.
• Advance the phaseout of fossil fuels.
• Ensure adequate finance for developing countries hit by climate disasters.

The 35% target is seen in the talks as one of the most important ways to decarbonise the global economy because it supplies a dated numerical benchmark.

Previous cover decisions show the range of language already accepted at the summit:

• The 2023 Cop28 cover decision in Dubai included a global pledge to “transition away from fossil fuels.”
• The 2021 Cop26 cover decision in Glasgow produced a requirement to “phase down” coal.

Cop31 must now settle whether its electricity, methane, fossil-fuel and finance package can gain agreement across one text.

The direction is visible, but the obligations are not.

Why did Guterres make the warning?

At his final climate press conference as secretary-general on Friday, outgoing António Guterres made an emotional farewell and said tackling the climate crisis must remain central to all of human life and at the forefront of global governance.

“You cannot build peace on a burning planet,” Guterres said. “You cannot eradicate poverty when climate disasters keep throwing people back into it. You cannot promise young people a better future while destroying the natural systems on which that future depends.”

Guterres leaves office at the end of December, and his successor remains unknown after Donald Trump tried to interject his preferred choices into the process. Widespread fears hold that the next secretary-general may put climate below other issues.

He has been the most forthright secretary-general yet on climate, repeatedly returning to the subject to castigate fossil-fuel companies and recalcitrant governments.

He said: “Climate change does not stay in its lane. It drives anger and displacement around the world. It wipes out development gains built over decades. It pushes countries deeper into deficit. It aggravates competition for land and water. It fuels instability. And increasingly, it threatens the very existence of communities and countries.”

He concluded that climate action was central to every aspect of UN work, rather than one issue among many.

His farewell targeted both the negotiating text and the leadership that follows it.

Who remains in the negotiating room?

More than 90 world leaders had attended Cop31, but most returned to their capitals by Friday afternoon. Guterres was among the few leaders left as negotiators worked on electrifying the global economy and a just transition out of fossil-fuel industries for workers.

Australia’s prime minister, Anthony Albanese, flew out after hosting a meeting between major international investors and Australian renewable-energy companies, followed by a meeting with Taneti Maamau, president of the low-lying Pacific nation of Kiribati. He made the plight of Australia’s Pacific neighbours a major part of his two-and-a-half-day stay.

The political attendance has thinned, but the negotiation has not.

How close is the summit to agreement?

The reflections also expose the difficulty of closing the text by next Friday night. Australia, in an unusual sharing arrangement, presides over the negotiations while Turkey hosts the talks.

Chris Bowen, Australia’s climate and energy minister and president of the negotiations, said: “We are making sure parties are being listened to as we progress negotiations. The reflection text is not a negotiating text. Nothing in it is prejudged, locked in or necessarily to be included in the final decision.”

Countries have until late Saturday to submit responses. An official draft cover decision is not expected until early next week, leaving negotiators a narrow route to the scheduled finish next Friday night.

A tight schedule has not removed the difficult choices.

Who is shaping access to the talks?

More than 100 companies and groups linked to fossil fuels are attending the summit despite efforts in recent years to restrict lobbyists, according to research published Friday.

Prakash Dalal, of Pro Public/Friends of the Earth Nepal, said: “Big polluters have caused loss of livelihood, emotional damage, trauma and survival challenges for our people. We cannot tolerate the disproportionate space given to them compared to civil society and our country delegations.”

The research counts presence, not influence.

What decides what happens next?

The final text must reconcile a 35% electricity benchmark with methane cuts, a fossil-fuel phaseout and finance for developing countries hit by climate disasters. Guterres’s warning keeps climate action central to the UN agenda, while the presence of more than 100 fossil-fuel-linked companies and groups places lobbying access beside the substantive negotiations.

For coal and other fossil-fuel interests, the phaseout language and 2035 electricity benchmark are the immediate market markers. Both remain proposals rather than settled commitments, and the dispute over access has not left the room.

The decision point arrives when countries submit responses by late Saturday, the official draft appears early next week, and the cover decision is gavelled next Friday night.