UN chief warns grid bottlenecks stall clean energy transition at COP31

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned Thursday that “clogged” electricity networks are stalling the global shift toward clean power, urging governments and lenders to accelerate infrastructure expansion during the COP31 climate summit in the southern Turkish coastal city of Antalya.

“If renewables are the heart of the energy transition, grids are its arteries. And today, those arteries are clogged,” Guterres told a high-level event on the Global Grids Accelerator, noting that around 3,000 gigawatts of advanced renewable and battery projects remain stuck awaiting connections.

While clean energy now attracts $2 for every $1 invested in fossil fuels, building a transmission line can take up to 15 years, compared with one year for a solar farm, he said.

Guterres stressed that meeting electrification goals requires building or upgrading more than 80 million kilometers (50 million miles) of power lines by 2040, making systems “smarter and more resilient” and “linking them across borders” to strengthen energy security and cut costs.

He said the Global Grids Accelerator, launched in September, serves this purpose by uniting UN agencies, governments, multilateral development banks and private investors to modernize networks.

Guterres underscored that geopolitical conflicts far away send household energy bills soaring in fossil-fuel-dependent economies, whereas renewables have become the “cheapest, fastest, and most secure” source of new electricity nearly everywhere.

Calling on governments to prioritize grids through long-term plans and urging financial institutions to increase global grid investment by 50% by 2030, Guterres concluded: “The clean energy transition is accelerating. The grids that carry it must accelerate with it.”