The world has left the age of coal, oil and gas behind and is now firmly in the age of electricity, Fatih Birol, the executive director of the International Energy Agency, said today at the Cop31 UN climate summit in Antalya, Turkey.
Oil and gas will still be burned, but they are no longer the dominant source of energy, Birol said. The world added roughly 5,000 gigawatts of electricity over the past decade, and on conservative estimates it will add about 12,000 gigawatts in the next ten, more than twice as much.
Delegations from 185 countries meeting in Antalya this week and next are weighing a resolution to draw 35% of the world's final energy from electricity by 2035, a target most governments support and one Birol calls potentially the most consequential decision to come out of a Cop in several years. Electricity currently covers about a quarter of most countries' energy needs, while fossil fuels still supply three-quarters of final energy worldwide, mostly for transport, heating and industry. A handful of holdouts, including Saudi Arabia and Russia, oppose the measure, and because decisions here need consensus, a small group can block everyone else.
Three forces are driving the shift regardless: data centres powering artificial intelligence, the electrification of transport, and, in terms of sheer volume, air conditioning. Electric car sales outside China have climbed 60% in the last nine months, and after electric models made up just 5% of global car sales five years ago, they will account for close to a third this year.
"Global electricity demand is growing three times faster than total energy demand, and it is impossible to stop it," Birol said. "The one and only issue is making electricity affordable for people."