IEA's Birol says COP31 targets electrification pledge

International Energy Agency head Fatih Birol joined, via videoconference, a programme titled 'Investment Summit Toward COP31' held at the Istanbul Finance Center. He said COP31 is a 'golden opportunity' for Türkiye and the world. He named the Strait of Hormuz crisis as the most important item on the global agenda, affecting everything from agriculture to energy.

Birol said the two main energy routes, pipelines from Western Siberia to Europe and tanker shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, are both, 'to put it mildly, boiling.' He said he is not optimistic that the energy crisis will normalise in 2027, and that governments are responding with new policies.

Birol said electrification has been proposed as COP31's main agenda item, with a pledge to raise its share of total energy from 23 percent today to 35 percent by 2035. He added that the second measure of COP's success is whether the pledge emerges from Antalya.