News & Views: The Bonn Briefing - Live from SB64

In this special edition: Unpacking the “35x35” global electrification tipping point and what it signals for the next phase of the energy transition. Also, how the incoming COP31 Presidency is framing its Global Climate Action Agenda priorities – from city resilience and food security to a push on zero waste.

Last week, the Climate High-Level Champions arrived in Bonn for the UN June Climate Meetings (SB64), the most consequential negotiating stop before the UN Climate Change Conference (COP31) convenes in Türkiye this November.

For two weeks, delegates work through draft texts and search for consensus across various areas that could shape the next phase of global climate action.

"The work is starting to pay off," UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell told negotiators during the opening session. But, he cautioned, "People the world over need this process to keep delivering, and at increasing speed and scale. That begins here in Bonn."

That’s why across Bonn, attention increasingly turned to the Marrakech Partnership and the broader Global Climate Action Agenda – a package of multistakeholder initiatives led by governments, businesses, cities, investors and civil society that is translating climate commitments into projects on the ground. While the Action Agenda sits outside and complements the formal negotiation process, it has become a central catalyst for supporting implementation.

During roundtables on topics ranging from energy and climate finance to nature and agriculture, participants lined the walls of packed rooms, as updates poured in from hundreds of climate initiatives.

This newsletter edition takes a deep dive into the latest announcement by the incoming COP 31 Presidency on electrification while future editions will also cover issues like food security, resilient cities, and zero waste as the road to COP31 unfolds.

Electrification is the Direction of Travel

One of the most closely watched proposals emerging from Türkiye for the Action Agenda last week was a new global electrification tipping point known as"35x35."

The goal is ambitious: increase electricity's share of global final energy consumption from roughly 20 percent today to 35 percent by 2035.

While past UN climate summits focused more on supply-side metrics like tripling renewable energy capacity, this proposal targets the demand side: buildings, industry, and transport. Most of the world's energy use still comes from the direct combustion of fossil fuels in these sectors.

However, electric vehicles and industrial electrification technologies are generally far more efficient than the fossil-fuel systems they replace, allowing economies to generate the same output using less energy overall.

New global business polling released this week, conducted by the We Mean Business Coalition, Global Renewables Alliance (GRA) and E3G, shows growing demand for electrification.

Polling of 1,994 business leaders across 18 markets finds:

• ⚡ 91% expect electrification to improve their energy security

• ⚡ 88% say electrification will make their business more competitive

• ⚡ 90% expect to have largely electrified their operations by 2035

UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell echoed the business case. "Electrification is a global game-changer, supercharging economies, jobs, and living standards," he said, calling it a matter of "hard, cold economic reality: renewables are cheaper."

The 35x35 electrification goal is grounded in 1.5°C compatible pathways, mapped out by the International Energy Agency (IEA) and IRENA. Electrification will need to accelerate across every major sector of the economy over the next decade. Buildings will lead the way, with electricity projected to account for 55 percent of final energy consumption by 2035. Industry must reach roughly 35 percent by 2035, while transport – currently one of the most fossil-fuel-dependent sectors – rises to around 15 percent by 2035 and more than 45 percent by 2050.

Faster Than Expected – And Not Fast Enough

To achieve that shift, global investment in electricity networks will need to roughly double to approximately USD 1 trillion per year through 2035. Storage capacity must expand more than six-fold over the next decade.

Yet in many places, the transition is already beginning to outrun the infrastructure designed to support it.

At a press conference on subnational electrification, Dan Ioschpe, the COP30 Climate High-Level Champion, pointed out that in many countries, renewables are generating more electricity than the system can absorb. Additionally, cities electrifying transport are discovering that vehicles are often the easy part. Building charging networks, grid connections, and storage systems takes longer.

Those realities help explain why implementation featured so prominently in Bonn's discussions. These are challenges that are country-specific and too operational for negotiating texts and too systemic for any single company, city or government to solve alone.

Yet, unlike many climate tipping points, electrification does not start from scratch. The foundations are already being laid through Action Agenda partnerships that have spent several COP cycles building the infrastructure required for an increasingly electrified economy.

The Groundwork for Grids and Storage

At COP28, the world's leading utilities formed the Utilities for Net Zero Alliance (UNEZA), under the guidance of IRENA and the Climate High-Level Champions, to accelerate grid investment. A year later, at COP29, governments and UNEZA pledged to deploy 1,500 gigawatts of energy storage and to build or modernise 25 million kilometres of grids by 2030.

By COP30, UNEZA members reported the construction and modernisation of roughly 23,000 kilometres of grid infrastructure in a single year – a distance comparable to the span between Belém and New Zealand. The alliance also exceeded its initial annual investment commitment of USD 117 billion, increasing it to USD 148 billion, while identifying a pipeline of more than USD 1 trillion in potential investments through 2030.

Action Agenda partners set targets and work to meet them with growing ambition, year after year. Now those partners are aiming their sites at electrification.

Still, participants in Bonn were careful not to suggest that a headline target alone will deliver the transition. If COP31 is to become a true COP of implementation, electrification will need to be accompanied by a strong delivery package tailored to the specific needs of countries, in particular, from the developing world, and capable of turning ambition into infrastructure.

The next phase of work will focus on exactly that – identifying the Action Agenda partnerships, investment vehicles and implementation plans that can help translate the 35x35 tipping point into measurable progress on the ground.

“We know the businesses, governments, subnationals and other partners who are ready to move on electrification, and the initiatives that are tackling barriers like grid access, permitting and finance,” said Jennie Dodson, Senior Director at the World Business Council for Sustainable Development.

As part of this growing coalition, Rachel Lévesque of the Government of Quebec underscored the role of subnational governments in delivering electrification. She noted that her own province has been electrifying transportation, improving energy efficiency, and supporting industrial decarbonization. "[Subnational governments] are essential partners in delivering the transition, and you can count on us."

Who Gets the Power

Perhaps the most critical part of the conversation is ensuring an equitable transition for all. With renewables still a small part of the energy mix across regions like Sub-Saharan Africa, a global acceleration of electrification must reach the places furthest from the grid.

Around 730 million people globally have no electricity, according to the IEA. Yet it also notes that by replicating the fastest electrification rates already achieved, universal access could come within a decade.

COP31 Climate High-Level Champion Samed Ağırbaş emphasized that power must be affordable and accessible enough to support the infrastructure that changes lives: a clinic that can refrigerate vaccines, an irrigation pump, or a school with lights after dark.

“When we meet at these big events, it is easy to get lost in technical talk. We need to keep our focus entirely on solutions that deliver visible, people-centered benefits to real communities,” Ağırbaş said.

He added that under the Action Agenda, there are several climate plans targeting the expansion of energy access in developing countries, including in rural communities and schools.

The Same Action Agenda, Carried Forward

The announcement on electrification by COP31 President-Designate H.E. Murat Kurum came alongside a larger list of Action Agenda priorities that Türkiye intends to champion on the road to COP31.

That list included zero waste, the clean energy transition, food security, oceans and seas, resilient cities and health systems, green industrialization, youth and education, a Climate Implementation Bridge, and synergies with the Rio conventions.

These priorities are embedded within the Action Agenda architecture established last year at COP30 – its six thematic axes, 30 activation groups and five-year vision for accelerating implementation. Türkiye is building on that existing architecture by identifying areas where it believes it can help accelerate delivery and leave a lasting legacy.

Several of the priorities reflect an increasing emphasis on adaptation and resilience planning. The incoming COP31 Presidency’s emphasis on food security, for example, is framed not only through agricultural emissions, but through adaptation, training, and productivity in climate-vulnerable regions. Existing initiatives within the Action Agenda illustrate how these priorities are already being translated into implementation. For example, the No Organic Waste plan has expanded composting hubs that cut methane emissions while diverting food waste from landfills, alongside food-bank networks designed to recover surplus food at scale.

Additionally, the incoming COP31 Presidency’s priority on resilient cities reflects how local adaptation has become a critical frontline. Under the Action Agenda, the Beat the Heat initiative has brought together more than 230 cities and 100 partners to improve local heat-risk planning, alongside expanding urban tree canopies, green spaces, and cooling infrastructure.

The inclusion of zero waste, in particular, reflects the background of COP31 Climate High-Level Champion Samed Ağırbaş, who has spent the first months of his tenure exploring how circular economy approaches can accelerate climate action across sectors.

Just days before arriving in Bonn, Ağırbaş convened Marrakech Partnership stakeholders at the Global Zero Waste Forum in Istanbul, where participants began developing a zero waste package. The initiative aims to bring together efforts on waste prevention, circular economy, sustainable consumption, food security and methane reduction.

"The Istanbul Platform: Zero Waste Package will enhance coordination and cooperation across the Action Agenda. It seeks to unite fragmented approaches to effectively reduce emissions," Ağırbaş said.

All of these priorities are being advanced through the same Action Agenda framework that is being carried forward beyond a single COP cycle.

Ultimately, Kurum was clear about where the Presidency wants this COP to be judged. "What the world needs today is not another round of promises," he said. "It needs to see existing commitments delivered."

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Stay tuned for our end of June newsletter which will feature the strongest progress updates from across all six axes of the Action Agenda!