Businesses Call on COP31 to Close the Electrification Gap

Published November 13, 2026

Just days before the COP31 climate summit opened in Antalya, Turkey, more than 180 companies sent a joint statement to the conference presidency. Signatories include Schneider Electric, H&M Group, Ikea, Danone, Uber and Volvo Cars, with combined annual revenues of $1.69 trillion. Their message was direct: governments should fast-track electrification and make it a central part of economic and industrial strategy.

The statement, published on November 3, 2026, reflects a growing view among businesses that electrification is no longer only a climate measure. It is increasingly tied to energy costs, price stability and competitiveness. For organizations managing buildings, fleets and energy budgets, the call highlights a shift that is already underway on the ground.

Companies Call for Closing the Electrification Implementation Gap

The statement was organized by the We Mean Business Coalition, a nonprofit focused on business climate action. Its central argument is that the world has enough ambition on electrification but not enough delivery. The coalition urged the COP31 presidency to make closing this “implementation gap” a defining test of this year’s summit.

The signatories frame the issue in economic terms. According to the statement, slow progress leaves countries more exposed to energy insecurity and volatile prices, while industrial competitiveness and investment suffer. For businesses, that translates into higher costs, delayed projects and harder decisions about where to invest capital.

The coalition’s CEO, Maria Mendiluce, described electrification as one of the defining economic shifts of the period. She argued that countries moving fastest to make it affordable and commercially viable will attract the next wave of industrial investment, while those falling behind risk missing out for decades.

COP31 Sets a 35×35 Electrification Target

Electrification sits at the center of the COP31 action agenda. The presidency’s Global Electrification Pledge, known as “35×35,” aims to raise electricity’s share of global final energy consumption to 35% by 2035. Current estimates put that share at roughly 20% to 23%, depending on the source. The target is based on analysis from the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), and would be reached by electrifying transportation, buildings and industry.

This year’s summit is also organized in an unusual way. Turkey and Australia share the presidency, with Turkey hosting the event in Antalya and Australia leading the official negotiations. Early in the summit, several related initiatives were announced:

The Electrify Now Finance Coalition, launched on November 10, to help developing countries attract private investment in clean electrification.
$94 million in catalytic finance from the Climate Investment Funds, aimed at mobilizing more than $1.2 billion in private investment for clean power, grids, storage and electrification.
A Global Electrification Tracking Mechanism, led by the IEA, to monitor electrification trends globally and by region.
An ongoing Electrification Forum, co-hosted with the EU, that will continue meeting after COP31 ends.

Businesses Are Electrifying Faster Than Governments Are Preparing

The coalition’s global polling of business leaders points to a clear gap. In that survey, 69% of respondents said their companies were adopting electrification faster than governments were preparing for it.

The coalition’s Electrification Competitiveness Index, developed with support from RMI and released on October 27, 2026, looks at the same gap at the country level. It assesses 16 economies on both actual electrification deployment and the enabling conditions behind it, such as policy, grids and electricity prices. In most countries, it found that policy and other enablers are ahead of deployment on the ground. The index groups countries into four categories:

Solid foundation (China, France, Spain): strong deployment and strong enablers, with China scoring highest on deployment.
Potential for take-off (Germany, India, Italy, Poland, UK): enablers ahead of deployment. UK industry pays around five times as much per unit of energy for electricity as for gas.
Risk of stalling (US, Australia, Brazil, Ethiopia, South Korea): deployment at or above the halfway mark, but enablers below the median. The index cites federal policy reversals and grid bottlenecks in the US, where more than 2 terawatts (TW) of generation and storage sit in interconnection queues, compared with about 1.3 TW of existing generating capacity.
Early-stage adoption (Indonesia, the Philippines, South Africa): below the halfway mark on both measures.

Conclusion: Organizations Can Move Ahead of Policy

The COP31 statement shows that much of the push for electrification is now coming from the companies that use energy, not only from governments. More than 180 businesses with $1.69 trillion in combined revenue are asking for faster progress because they see electrification as a way to manage costs, reduce exposure to fuel price swings and stay competitive.

For organizations, the lesson is that they do not need to wait for national policy to catch up. Electrifying building heating and fleets, adding on-site solar and storage, and planning early for grid connections are steps within an organization’s own control. Grid constraints such as long interconnection queues also make early planning more important.

Reliable data is central to all of this. Tracking energy use and emissions across facilities helps organizations identify where electrification delivers the most value, measure the results and build the business case for further investment. Whatever happens in the COP31 negotiations, organizations that understand their own energy data will be better placed to act on it.