Turkey is making electrification a central theme of this year’s UN climate summit, Cop31, which it is currently hosting in the Mediterranean city of Antalya alongside Australia. The ambition is to raise the share of global energy demand met by electricity from 20% today to 35% by 2035.
But there is a tension in this agenda. More electrification will only cut emissions if the electricity comes from cleaner sources. In Turkey, coal and natural gas still account for more than half of electricity generation, while the country is also pursuing new oil and gas exploration deals. Ahead of a speech at the summit, the country’s president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced what he called the “encouraging” discovery of two new oilfields.
