The Action Agenda Electrifies COP31

Welcome to Top of the COP, a daily recap of the top headlines coming from the Global Climate Action Agenda.

In today’s edition: Utilities deliver record 21,000 kilometres of new grids as investment climbs to more than USD 156 billion per year; energy access reaches over 67,000 people at the last mile; zero-emission truck corridors beat their 2026 goal, with 13 routes underway across six continents; and maritime leaders back a goal for electricity to meet a fifth of the sector’s energy demand by 2035.

Need for speed: Action Agenda hits the accelerator on electrification

The COP31 theme song is “Let’s COP”, but it might be “Electric Feel”. With the world standing at a critical crossroads to hold a 1.5°C overshoot to a minimum, electrification has come forward as one of the best ways to limit warming.

The COP31 Presidency’s Global Electrification Initiative aims to lift electricity’s share of final energy consumption to 35% by 2035, known as ‘35x35’. The trend is moving the right way: nearly 700 GW of renewables were added in 2025, and electricity now meets 23% of final energy.

But technology alone will not deliver the transition. Transport, in the places where it’s possible, also needs a shift towards more public transport, walking and cycling – the avoid-and-shift measures that reduce demand for high-carbon travel.

Much of the electrification groundwork was laid at earlier COPs, showing how political signals deliver real action and investments. At COP28, the first Global Stocktake led nearly 200 countries to call for tripling renewable energy capacity by 2030, and leading utilities formed the Utilities for Net Zero Alliance (UNEZA). At COP29, governments and initiatives, including UNEZA, joined the Grids and Storage Pledge, committing to deploy 1,500 GW of storage and build 25 million kilometres of new grid infrastructure by 2030. By COP30, UNEZA announced a USD 1 trillion pipeline for power grids and energy storage by 2030.

Multiple COPs have laid the foundation, and now results are coming in from every corner of the real economy. It’s hard to reflect the breadth and scale of the energy package that will be delivered under the Action Agenda at COP31, with backing coming from cities, businesses, and industry throughout the week.

Here’s how key sectors across the Action Agenda are punching above their electrification weight.

UNEZA delivers record 21,000 km of grids as investment climbs to more than USD 156 billion per year

Members of the Utilities for Net Zero Alliance (UNEZA) announced today at COP31 that their combined investment plans across grids, renewables and storage total at least USD 156 billion a year – 5% higher than last year and 35% higher than in 2024.

The 89-member alliance is co-chaired by Abu Dhabi National Energy Company (TAQA) and the UK’s SSE. Its members built more than 21,000 kilometres of new grid in 2025, up 50% from 14,000 in 2024. That is more than halfway around the world, enough to link the last four COP host cities from Dubai to Antalya via Baku and Belém.

“Since COP28, UNEZA members have kept building, reported progress every year and raised implementation. That is what the Global Climate Action Agenda was designed to support,” said Dan Ioschpe, COP30 Climate High-Level Champion.

Grids are the backbone of the energy transition, carrying electricity from where it is generated to the homes, businesses and industries that need it, while connecting growing supplies of renewable power to the wider system.

Tomorrow, Action Agenda partners will launch a much-awaited Technical Assistance Solutions Hub to help countries, grid operators, and utilities get the technical assistance needed for implementing affordable, reliable, and secure smart grids. It’s all part of the Action Agenda plan for the expansion and resilience of power grids.

Universal Energy Facility surpasses halfway mark on new electricity connections

Less than a year after pledging 25,000 new electricity connections by 2028, Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL) and its Universal Energy Facility (UEF) reported at COP31 that they are already more than halfway there.

Meanwhile, in Sierra Leone, where national access has jumped from under 5% to 36%, SEforALL’s Salone Off-Grid Renewable Energy Acceleration (SOGREA) initiative has 30,000 more connections in the pipeline by 2028. Those will reach more than 200,000 people.

The need is still enormous: 655 million people live without electricity. However, even where the wires reach, many households can’t afford to connect. That makes the business case critical: connections pay for themselves when electricity powers livelihoods, not just lightbulbs.

For example, in Zambia, local business owner Jelina Mwaula now keeps her fish in a freezer, cutting losses and transport costs. In Kambia, Sierra Leone, shop owner Maseray Turay stays open later and draws more customers.

In all, initiatives across Africa, including Mission 300, have brought new or improved electricity access to more than 67 million people.

Much of this work is part of an Action Agenda plan to accelerate universal access to electricity, which aims to close the access gap by 2035.

Zero-emission truck corridors beat their 2026 goal, with 13 routes now underway across six continents

Backing the 35x35 goal is another COP31 Presidency initiative launching today on Global Green Freight Corridors.

It comes with a strong signal of support from the real economy as the Global Green Road Corridors Initiative – a global effort under an Action Agenda plan to decarbonize medium- and heavy-duty vehicles such as trucks and buses – announced it surpassed its 2024 goal to connect at least ten corridors by 2026. Thirteen are already in development across six continents, covering more than 29,000 kilometres of roads.

They span Colombia, the US East Coast, Northern and Southern Africa, India and Australia, and include a route linking Central Asia to China and Europe.

For example, the Mediterranean Corridor, which runs 1,500 kilometres from Algeciras in southern Spain to Avignon in France, already has 45% of its planned charging capacity installed. Iberdrola, which leads the work, now boasts 65 truck charging stations in its Spanish network, with 249 charging points and 67 MW installed. That includes Southern Europe’s first public megawatt charger for trucks, which opened in Murcia in 2024 and can add 300-400 kilometres of range during a driver’s mandatory 45-minute rest stop.

Transport is one of the few sectors where emissions are still rising. Road transport emitted over 6 billion tonnes of CO₂ in 2024, 8% more than in 2015. And heavy-duty vehicles come with, literally, a truckload of CO₂. Trucks and buses make up less than 9% of the world’s vehicles but produce nearly a third of direct road-transport emissions, with heavy-duty trucking expected to more than double by 2050. However, the solutions are there, and now, the platforms to scale them.

Maritime leaders back new electrification goal

Shipping and ports are also ramping up electrification, including through the Action Agenda plan to accelerate maritime decarbonization. Nearly 30 supporters are today backing a new Maritime Electrification Breakthrough Goal: electricity meeting at least 20% of shipping’s energy demand by 2035. That alone would add about 2 exajoules of electricity demand, roughly 6% of what the 35x35 goal requires.

Backers include ZEMBA, a buyers’ alliance whose members include Amazon, IKEA and Nike, and the Zero Emission Port Alliance, which includes ports such as Rotterdam and terminal operators such as DP World.

The maritime sector is already moving in the direction of electrification. As of October 2026, around 2170 electric battery vessels are in operation or under construction and ports from Seattle to Gothenburg to Shanghai now let ships switch off their engines and plug in at berth. In Brazil, APM Terminals Suape has become Latin America’s first fully electrified container terminal, welcoming its first vessel in September this year.

Meanwhile, new maritime deals announced at COP31 demonstrate what’s possible. Yesterday, Höegh Autoliners and BYD signed a cooperation agreement to install BYD’s battery technology on board Aurora No. 12 – the most fuel-efficient ocean-going pure car and truck carrier ever built. Additionally, AET Tankers announced sea trials for the AET Innovator, which has been retrofitted with a plug-in battery-hybrid system. Once operational, it will be the world’s longest-range plug-in hybrid vessel, capable of cutting emissions by up to 82%.

In Other News:

• Yesterday, the 2026 Yearbook of Global Climate Action was published and is now available on the UNFCCC website. The Yearbook aims to identify both progress and implementation gaps, for example, by presenting the latest numbers on the Action Agenda Plans to Accelerate Solutions and analyzing the data from the NAZCA Evidence Portal. The Yearbook will also be updated at the end of COP 31, capturing Action Agenda achievements and outcomes during the conference. Read it here.

• Developing countries account for roughly 80% of the world’s growth in electricity demand, but they draw only a sliver of the money behind the energy transition, according to new data from SEforALL. The Electrify Now Finance Coalition, launching at COP31 today, is trying to close that gap and turn clean-power ambitions into bankable projects before the 2028 Global Stocktake. It is backed by the COP31 Presidency and the incoming COP32 Presidency, along with the World Bank Group, development banks and institutional investors. The Climate Investment Funds also put early money behind the effort, committing USD 94 million to five projects designed to pull in more than USD 1.2 billion from private investors.

• British energy giant Octopus yesterday announced an Asia Electrification Fund to help bring cheap, clean energy across Asia. It aims to catalyse USD 600 million from institutional investors to build clean energy projects that can cut reliance on expensive fossil fuels and protect customers from energy price shocks. A first investment of USD 50 million in the Philippines will power more than 300,000 homes by 2030. Read more here.

• Businesses are aligning behind 35x35. Since July, the number of major businesses backing the Seizing the Electric Advantage business statement has nearly doubled to 180 companies with an annual revenue of USD 1.69 trillion.

• This week, the Energy Transitions Commission laid out what it would take to keep well below 2°C including turbo charging electrification, with all power systems almost entirely decarbonized by mid-century. That would include hard-to-electrify sectors such as heavy industry, aviation, and shipping.

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