Rooftop solar panels on homes in Mehsana, Gujarat, India

Shehbaz Sharif at COP31: Pakistan’s Solar Boom Needs $138 Billion — and a Fair Share of Climate Finance

November 11, 2026 Faizan Altaf

Pakistan has already carried out one of the fastest rooftop solar booms anywhere in the world — and now it wants the world’s help to finish the job. That was Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s message at the COP31 climate summit in Antalya, Turkiye, on Wednesday, 11 November 2026, where he told world leaders that Pakistan needs around $138 billion by 2035 to complete its switch to low-carbon power.

Speaking at a high-level dialogue on clean energy called “35 by 35: Powering the Future”, the prime minister said Pakistan had added nearly 22 gigawatts of rooftop solar capacity in just two years — a change driven not by the government, but by ordinary households and businesses putting panels on their own roofs.

“In my country, an extraordinary transition has already taken place,” he said. “In just two years, Pakistan has added nearly 22 gigawatts of rooftop solar capacity — a quiet revolution by ordinary citizens seeking affordable power and a cleaner, more predictable future.”

His message was simple: the shift to clean energy is already happening in Pakistan. What is missing is the money to keep it going — and to make sure the poorest countries are not left paying the highest price for a crisis they did least to cause.

What Shehbaz Sharif told the summit

The prime minister’s speech at COP31 — the 31st Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change — was built around three big numbers.

The first is 22 gigawatts: the amount of rooftop solar Pakistan has added in about two years. To put that in perspective, 22 gigawatts is roughly the same as the entire electricity-generating capacity of some medium-sized European countries. And almost all of it was installed by households, shops, factories and farms, not by the state.

The second is $138 billion: the amount Pakistan says it needs by 2035 for low-carbon power generation. On top of that, the prime minister said Pakistan needs another $50 billion to replace coal-based power with solar energy.

The third is 35 per cent: the target at the heart of the “35 by 35” plan. Pakistan has backed the 35-by-35 Global Electrification Pledge, under which countries aim to raise electricity’s share of their total final energy use to around 35 per cent by 2035. Today, electricity makes up just over a fifth of global energy use. The idea is that as more cars, heating and industry run on electricity instead of petrol, gas and coal, emissions fall — but only if that electricity itself is clean.

“The momentum is real and it is accelerating,” the prime minister said. But he warned that “momentum without finance cannot be sustained”.

“Our grids must expand quickly and reliably. Storage must keep supply steady. New technologies must be affordable for all. Yet, this burden falls on countries already under heavy debt,” he said.

His call was for rich countries and international lenders to provide cheap loans — known as concessional finance — and to share clean-energy technology at prices developing countries can afford.

“The ’35 by 35′ clean energy goal could only be achieved if finance flows at the speed of ambition through concessional capital and the transfer of affordable technology,” he said.

“Let us resolve to power our economies without impoverishing our people and light up our homes without darkening our planet. That is the promise of 35 by 35, and it is a promise we must deliver together and under all circumstances,” he added.

A “quiet revolution” on Pakistani rooftops

The most striking part of the prime minister’s speech was his description of Pakistan’s solar boom as a “quiet revolution by ordinary citizens”.

Unlike the giant solar farms built by governments and energy companies in other countries, Pakistan’s solar surge has been driven from the bottom up. Faced with expensive grid electricity and frequent power cuts, households and businesses across the country have installed solar panels on their rooftops at a remarkable pace. Shops, factories, schools and homes have all joined in, turning Pakistan into one of the world’s fastest-growing solar markets almost overnight.

The prime minister said clean sources now provide nearly 55 per cent of Pakistan’s energy mix — a figure that includes hydropower and nuclear power alongside solar and wind.

That transformation matters for two reasons. First, it shows that the energy transition can happen quickly when the economics make sense for ordinary people. Second, it shows the limits of what citizens can do on their own. Rooftop panels generate power, but they do not build the bigger grid, the battery storage and the transmission lines needed to carry that power reliably to everyone. That is the part that needs public money and international finance — the $138 billion the prime minister is asking for.

What “35 by 35” actually means

The “35 by 35” plan is the centrepiece of this year’s climate summit. Turkiye, which holds the COP31 presidency and is hosting the talks in Antalya, is pushing countries to agree that electricity should make up 35 per cent of all the energy the world uses by 2035, up from just over a fifth today.

The logic is straightforward. Right now, much of the world’s energy still comes from burning coal, oil and gas directly — in car engines, in boilers, in factories. If those uses switch to electricity, and that electricity comes from clean sources such as solar, wind, hydro and nuclear, then emissions fall sharply. The plan is sometimes described as the start of the “age of electricity”.

Nearly 200 countries are represented at COP31, and the leaders’ summit runs across Wednesday and Thursday, 11 and 12 November. The full conference continues until 20 November, when negotiators hope to reach a final deal.

The $138 billion question

At the heart of Pakistan’s case is a question of fairness. Pakistan produces less than 1 per cent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, yet it is among the countries most severely affected by climate change. Floods, heatwaves, melting glaciers and changing rainfall patterns already threaten lives and livelihoods across the country.

Around 13,500 glaciers have been identified in Pakistan, and the growing threat of glacial lake outburst floods — sudden floods caused when a lake formed by a melting glacier bursts its banks — puts thousands of people, their homes and their livelihoods at risk. Federal Minister for Climate Change Musadik Malik made the same point at the UN Climate Change Pavilion at COP31, calling for international scientific cooperation to study glaciers and mountain ecosystems.

That is why Pakistan, along with other developing countries, is pressing for climate finance that is predictable, adequate and accessible. Under UN climate agreements, developed countries — which are historically responsible for most greenhouse gas emissions — are meant to provide financial support to help developing nations adapt to climate impacts and switch to clean energy. Poorer countries say the sums remain far too small, and the money too slow to arrive.

The negotiations at COP31 began on a tense note. Talks ran late into Sunday night over demands by developing nations to put climate finance on the official agenda. African countries are also pushing for talks on tripling adaptation finance — money to help poorer nations pay for measures such as sea walls and drought-resistant crops. Greenpeace’s COP31 delegation head, Jasper Inventor, said wealthy nations were “taking a hard line” over a finance platform agreed at COP30 in Brazil last year.

Pakistan has repeatedly urged developed countries to fulfil their commitment to mobilise $100 billion a year in climate finance for developing nations. The prime minister’s $138 billion figure is a reminder of how large the bill is for just one country — and how far the promised finance still falls short.

Electric vehicles and nuclear: the rest of the plan

The prime minister’s speech was not only about solar power. He also set out the rest of Pakistan’s clean-energy plan, from electric vehicles to nuclear power.

Pakistan’s newly drafted auto policy aims for 30 per cent of new vehicles to be electric by 2030, with incentives through lower tariffs. All future government buses and motorcycles will be electric, the prime minister said. And the shift is already visible on the roads: this year, for the first time, more than one in every 10 motorcycles sold in Pakistan was electric.

He also pointed to the recent inauguration of a key section of Pakistan’s seventh nuclear power plant, Chashma-5, where the reactor dome has been placed. The project will add 1,200 megawatts of clean energy to Pakistan’s energy mix, he said.

Taken together, the plan covers the three parts of the energy system that matter most: generating clean power, moving it through the grid, and using it in cars, buses and homes.

What happened on the sidelines

The prime minister was received on arrival at the summit venue by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose country holds the COP31 presidency, and by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. He then joined other world leaders for the summit’s group photograph.

On the sidelines, he held a series of meetings with leaders and officials, including Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian, Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Tarique Rehman, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa, Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, Saudi State Minister for Foreign Affairs Adel bin Ahmed al-Jubeir, Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa, Organisation of Islamic Cooperation chief Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, World Bank President Ajay Banga and Turkiye’s First Lady Emine Erdogan.

In his meeting with the Palestinian prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif expressed Pakistan’s full solidarity with the Palestinian people, according to the Prime Minister’s Office. The meetings, the PMO said, focused on strengthening bilateral relations and on highlighting the challenges faced by the countries most affected by climate change.

A Pakistan Pavilion has been set up at the COP31 venue, where 54 events will be hosted on various themes during the summit.

Opening the third day of the conference, Guterres warned leaders that the slow international response to climate change had put the world on a dangerous path. “The brutal truth is that the climate crisis is outrunning us. This is the path to mutually assured destruction,” he said, pointing to rising emissions, global temperatures and worsening climate-driven disasters.

“But science is not telling us to surrender. It is telling us to fight harder,” he added. He also noted that three-quarters of humanity live in countries that import fossil fuels, leaving them exposed to price shocks they did not create and cannot control.

The summit is taking place against a difficult backdrop. The United States, the world’s largest historical emitter, has skipped the talks for a second year in a row, and several other major countries, including France, Germany, Japan, Italy and Canada, did not send their top leaders. A UN report last month found the world on course to break through the 1.5 degrees Celsius warming limit agreed under the Paris Agreement. And 2026 has already seen extreme heatwaves across Western Europe and a glacier collapse in Nepal that triggered a catastrophic flood, killing more than 1,450 people.

Why this matters for Pakistan

For Pakistan, COP31 is not an abstract debate about global targets. It is about money, survival and fairness. The country is paying a heavy price for a crisis it barely caused: its glaciers are melting, its floods are becoming more destructive, and its farmers face increasingly unpredictable rain. At the same time, it has shown that a clean-energy transition can happen fast when ordinary people lead the way — 22 gigawatts of rooftop solar in two years is proof of that.

But the next stage — bigger grids, battery storage, electric transport and the replacement of coal — cannot be paid for by households alone. That is why the prime minister’s ask is so large, and why he framed it as a shared responsibility rather than a favour.

“Momentum without finance cannot be sustained” is the line that sums up Pakistan’s whole case. The solar panels are already on the roofs. What is missing is the finance to build the system around them.

What happens next

The leaders’ summit continues on Thursday, 12 November, with dozens of heads of state and government due to speak. The prime minister was also scheduled to address the Leaders’ Summit itself on Wednesday, where the Prime Minister’s Office said he would press Pakistan’s wider climate case, including disaster preparedness and early-warning systems.

Negotiators will then spend the rest of the conference, until 20 November, trying to turn the leaders’ speeches into a final agreement. The two biggest sticking points are already clear: whether climate finance gets a proper place on the agenda, and whether countries agree on a plan to move away from fossil fuels. Few major breakthroughs are expected, observers say, as countries grapple with high oil prices and geopolitical tensions.

FAQ

How much rooftop solar has Pakistan added?

Nearly 22 gigawatts in just two years, according to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s speech at COP31. He described it as “a quiet revolution by ordinary citizens”.

What is the “35 by 35” plan?

It is a pledge, backed by COP31 host Turkiye, to raise electricity’s share of total final energy consumption to around 35 per cent by 2035, up from just over a fifth today. Pakistan has said it fully supports the pledge.

How much money does Pakistan say it needs?

Around $138 billion by 2035 for low-carbon power generation, plus another $50 billion to replace coal-based power with solar energy.

What share of Pakistan’s energy comes from clean sources?

Nearly 55 per cent of the country’s energy mix now comes from clean sources, according to the prime minister. That includes solar, wind, hydropower and nuclear power.

What is Pakistan’s electric vehicle target?

Under the newly drafted auto policy, 30 per cent of new vehicles should be electric by 2030. All future government buses and motorcycles will be electric, and more than one in every 10 motorcycles sold in Pakistan this year was already electric.

When does COP31 end?

The conference in Antalya, Turkiye, runs until 20 November 2026. The leaders’ summit takes place on 11 and 12 November.

Conclusion

Shehbaz Sharif’s speech at COP31 was, at its core, a story of two halves. The first half is a success story: ordinary Pakistanis have put solar panels on their rooftops at a pace few countries have matched, adding nearly 22 gigawatts in two years and pushing clean energy to nearly 55 per cent of the national energy mix.

The second half is a warning. Without finance — the $138 billion for low-carbon power and the $50 billion to replace coal — that momentum will stall. Grids need to expand, storage needs to be built, and new technology needs to be affordable for everyone, not just the wealthy.

Pakistan has done its part from the bottom up. At COP31, its prime minister is asking the world to meet it halfway — with money that flows, in his words, “at the speed of ambition”.

Sources

This article is for general information and education only. It is not legal or financial advice.

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