EU Backs 12-Fold Global Geothermal Expansion at COP31 The European Union has joined the Global Geothermal Ambition 2050. a new international pledge to expand geothermal energy for electricity and heat to 12 times its projected 2025 level by 2050. Announced at COP31 in Antalya, Türkiye, the initiative signals growing recognition that geothermal energy can provide clean, weather-independent power and heat alongside solar and wind. The pledge was launched by the Turkish COP31 Presidency in collaboration with the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). It sets a collective—not legally binding—target to scale global geothermal supply for power and heat from roughly 2.5 exajoules (EJ) in 2025 to about 31 EJ by mid-century. What the pledge commits to The initiative does not impose a uniform national target. Instead, participating governments, businesses, and organisations agree to work collaboratively to accelerate geothermal deployment, while each participant retains control over its ...
EU Backs 12-Fold Global Geothermal Expansion at COP31
The European Union has joined the Global Geothermal Ambition 2050. a new international pledge to expand geothermal energy for electricity and heat to 12 times its projected 2025 level by 2050. Announced at COP31 in Antalya, Türkiye, the initiative signals growing recognition that geothermal energy can provide clean, weather-independent power and heat alongside solar and wind.
The pledge was launched by the Turkish COP31 Presidency in collaboration with the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). It sets a collective—not legally binding—target to scale global geothermal supply for power and heat from roughly 2.5 exajoules (EJ) in 2025 to about 31 EJ by mid-century.
What the pledge commits to
The initiative does not impose a uniform national target. Instead, participating governments, businesses, and organisations agree to work collaboratively to accelerate geothermal deployment, while each participant retains control over its own energy strategy.
Its priorities include strengthening policy frameworks, attracting investment, reducing exploration risk, improving access to finance, and expanding geothermal use across buildings, agriculture, industry, and tourism. It also calls for faster permitting, supportive infrastructure, research and development, stronger supply chains, and international technical cooperation.
The EU’s participation was announced by European Commissioner for Energy and Housing Dan Jørgensen, who framed geothermal as a tool for energy security, competitiveness, and resilience. He argued that geothermal can reduce emissions while providing affordable heating, cooling, and continuous baseload electricity that is not dependent on weather conditions or global fuel-price volatility.
The scale of the ambition
The numbers behind the pledge are substantial. IRENA analysis cited in the declaration projects that global geothermal power capacity could rise from 15.6 GW in 2025 to 193 GW in 2050—an increase of more than 12 times.
At the same time, the initiative expects the overall supply of geothermal energy for heat and electricity to grow from around 2.5 EJ today to approximately 31 EJ by 2050. In practical terms, this means expanding geothermal’s role not only in power generation but also in heating buildings, supporting industrial processes, and serving agricultural and tourism applications.
That growth rate is ambitious. Reaching 193 GW would require an average of about 7 GW of new geothermal power capacity each year between 2025 and 2050, according to an analysis of the target.
Why geothermal matters
Geothermal energy is unusual among renewable technologies because it can deliver both electricity and heat. Solar and wind are variable: their output depends on sunlight and wind conditions. Geothermal plants, by contrast, can operate continuously, making them valuable for baseload power and for providing reliable heat to homes, greenhouses, industrial facilities, and district-heating networks.
This reliability is central to the EU’s interest. As Europe decarbonises electricity systems and phases out fossil fuels, it will need firm, low-carbon generation to balance variable renewables, maintain grid stability, and meet year-round heating demand. Geothermal can serve that role without the fuel-price exposure associated with gas, coal, or oil.
Geothermal also has a broader industrial role. Heat is often harder to decarbonise than electricity because many factories, food-processing plants, breweries, textile facilities, and agricultural operations require steady thermal energy. Geothermal resources can supply that heat directly, reducing reliance on fossil-fuel boilers and improving energy security.
Europe’s strategic case
For the EU, the pledge is not simply a climate commitment. It is also an energy-security strategy. Jørgensen positioned geothermal as a way to reinforce Europe’s “strategic autonomy” by developing domestic energy resources that are less exposed to imported fuels and volatile international markets.
The EU’s energy system has been under pressure from supply disruptions, price volatility, and the need to reduce dependence on imported fossil fuels. Geothermal offers a domestically available resource in many regions, although its availability and quality vary widely by geology. That variability is one reason the pledge emphasises exploration, technical assistance, and knowledge sharing rather than assuming every country can deploy the technology in the same way.
Geothermal can also support electrification and grid modernisation. As power systems add more solar and wind capacity, they need flexible and dependable resources that can provide electricity when weather-dependent generation falls. Geothermal’s continuous output can complement those technologies rather than compete directly with them.
The barriers to deployment
The pledge acknowledges that geothermal expansion will not happen automatically. The declaration highlights stable regulation, timely permitting, infrastructure, exploration-risk mitigation, and finance as central requirements for faster deployment.
Exploration risk
Unlike solar or wind projects, geothermal development begins with geological uncertainty. Developers must identify viable reservoirs, drill wells, and confirm that the resource can deliver sufficient heat or steam at an economic rate. Early-stage exploration can be expensive, and a dry or underperforming well can undermine a project’s economics.
This is why the initiative specifically calls for measures to tackle exploration risks. Public support for early-stage drilling, risk-sharing mechanisms, insurance schemes, and geological data programmes can make projects easier to finance.
Permitting and grid access
Geothermal projects can face long permitting timelines because they involve drilling, land access, water use, seismic monitoring, environmental assessment, and grid connection. The pledge’s emphasis on timely permitting reflects a recognition that regulatory delay can be as limiting as technical risk.
Grid access is equally important for power projects. A geothermal plant may be technically viable but commercially constrained if transmission capacity is unavailable or connection queues are long. Supportive infrastructure is therefore listed among the initiative’s enabling conditions.
Finance and supply chains
Geothermal projects are capital-intensive upfront but can have low operating costs once built. The challenge is financing the exploration and construction phase, particularly in markets where developers lack access to low-cost capital or long-term power-purchase agreements.
The pledge also calls for stronger supply chains. Scaling from 15.6 GW to 193 GW will require more drilling rigs, specialised equipment, skilled geoscientists, engineers, construction capacity, and turbine and heat-exchanger supply.
Environmental and social safeguards
The declaration does not treat geothermal as risk-free. It explicitly links expansion to environmental and social responsibilities, signalling that projects must be developed carefully, particularly where drilling can affect groundwater, land use, or local communities.
Responsible development will require robust monitoring, transparent community engagement, careful management of fluids and emissions, and attention to induced seismicity where relevant. These safeguards are especially important as geothermal moves into new geological settings and next-generation systems.
The pledge’s voluntary structure may help accommodate these differences. Rather than prescribing one technology or deployment model, it allows countries to pursue conventional hydrothermal resources, enhanced geothermal systems, heat networks, or industrial heat applications according to their own resource base and regulatory capacity.
What makes this pledge different
Geothermal has often been overshadowed in climate policy by solar, wind, batteries, and hydrogen. Those technologies are essential, but geothermal occupies a distinct niche: it can provide firm power and heat, often with a small land footprint and long asset life.
The Global Geothermal Ambition 2050 is notable because it treats geothermal as a system-level solution rather than a niche technology. It links electricity, heating, cooling, industry, agriculture, and tourism, recognising that decarbonising heat is as important as decarbonising power.
It also creates a framework for international cooperation. By asking signatories to review and assess progress using existing reporting frameworks, including those maintained by IRENA, the initiative aims to make ambition measurable rather than purely rhetorical.
The challenge of delivery
The central question is whether the pledge can translate into projects. Global targets are easy to announce; drilling programmes, finance, permits, and grid connections are harder to deliver.
The 12-fold target implies a major acceleration from today’s deployment rates. If global capacity must rise from 15.6 GW to 193 GW, the industry will need to overcome a persistent problem: geothermal projects often take years to develop, while investors may prefer technologies with shorter development cycles and more standardised risks.
The pledge addresses this by calling for investment opportunities, policy measures, and technical assistance. But its success will depend on whether governments convert those commitments into concrete instruments: exploration grants, drilling-risk funds, streamlined permitting, heat-market incentives, grid planning, and long-term procurement frameworks.
Implications for businesses
For energy developers, the pledge could open opportunities in project development, drilling services, geoscience, heat-network construction, industrial heat supply, and equipment manufacturing. For businesses with high heat demand, geothermal may become an increasingly attractive route to reduce emissions and stabilise energy costs.
For financial institutions, the initiative highlights a need for new risk-sharing products. Exploration insurance, public-private drilling funds, guarantees, and concessional finance could help move geothermal from a high-risk early-stage technology to a bankable infrastructure asset.
For policymakers, the message is that geothermal cannot scale on ambition alone. It needs a predictable regulatory pathway, accessible geological data, skilled labour, and infrastructure planning that treats heat as seriously as electricity.
A test of international cooperation
The Global Geothermal Ambition 2050 is a collective commitment, not a binding global mandate. That design gives countries flexibility, but it also means progress will depend on sustained political attention and practical implementation.
The initiative’s call for further governments, businesses, and organisations to join suggests that its organisers see it as the beginning of a broader coalition rather than a one-off COP announcement.
If the pledge succeeds, geothermal could become a much larger part of the global clean-energy mix—providing reliable electricity, decarbonising heat, and reducing exposure to fossil-fuel volatility. If it fails to attract investment and streamline deployment, it may remain a promising but underused technology.
For now, the EU’s backing gives the initiative political weight. The next test will be whether COP31’s geothermal ambition becomes a pipeline of financed projects, drilled wells, connected plants, and delivered heat.
Source: power-technology., Energy Global
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