Integrating equity and inclusion in buildings roadmap
GBPN recently launched its Building Fair Futures Toolkit, a practical resource designed to help governments and NGO partners integrate justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion (JEDI) into building decarbonization roadmaps. The toolkit was informed by GBPN’s work on Kenya’s National Buildings & Construction Decarbonization Roadmap, and many African organizations have already expressed their intent to implement its principles.
The toolkit helps policymakers and supporting technical teams to assess how inclusive their policies and programs are and to identify gaps between policy intent and on-the-ground implementation. It also provides structured guidance for embedding these principles across planning, policy design, and project implementation in the buildings and construction sector. Without intentional integration of JEDI principles, the long-term sustainability and public legitimacy of climate interventions may be at risk.
The toolkit’s framework is designed to be adaptable across diverse contexts and aligns with international climate and development principles, including the Paris Agreement on climate change, the Sustainable Development Goals, and just transition principles. In the coming months, GBPN will promote the toolkit to a global audience beyond Africa to support its widespread use.
Electrifying industrial heat: a win for Europe’s energy security and for the climate
Agora Industry’s latest analysis, building on case studies from Germany and joint research with partners from Poland (Reform Institut) and Italy (ECCO), shows that electrifying low- and medium-temperature industrial process heat (used in the food and beverage, pulp and paper, and chemical industries) can deliver substantial economic, climate, and energy security benefits. For low-temperature processes, widely used electric heating technologies such as industrial heat pumps can already beat fossil gas on cost in Europe, even when electricity prices are several times higher. Electrification cuts emissions by replacing fossil fuels, while also reducing primary energy consumption through higher efficiency. In addition, replacing imported fossil fuels with domestically produced renewable electricity strengthens industry’s resilience to supply shocks and associated gas price volatility.
The research offers policymakers currently working on the EU’s Electrification Action Plan clear, actionable evidence on the EU-wide economic and security benefits of policies that accelerate industrial electrification.
Agora demonstrates how Pakistan can transition from gas to renewables
Recent geopolitical volatility underscores the urgency for countries to transition away from fossil fuels to strengthen energy resilience. In Pakistan, imported liquefied natural gas accounts for a quarter of the total gas supply. But rapid solar expansion, declining domestic gas production, and a gas supply system that has struggled to reliably fuel power plants create an opportunity to shift demand toward electricity.
Launched at a policy dialogue in Islamabad in February, two Agora analyses outline a roadmap to shift from gas to electricity in households and industry, boosting energy security, easing the burden on public finances, cutting emissions, and making better use of existing power infrastructure. A residential study done in partnership with the LUMS Energy Institute finds that replacing household gas appliances with electric alternatives by 2050 could save $23.8 billion in fuel imports and avoid 108 million tons of CO2 emissions. The industrial analysis, conducted with Agora Industry and the Policy Research Institute for Equitable Development, shows that electrifying process heat could reduce industrial emissions by up to 50 percent and lower energy use by over 36 percent.
Achieving this will require supportive electricity tariffs, appliance financing incentives, and grid modernization. Agora and its partners will continue to provide the evidence base to guide the design and implementation of Pakistan’s electrification pathways, helping the country secure energy independence and drive sustainable economic growth.
Recent ICCT analysis shows the fastest EV growth in emerging economies
Adoption of new EV policies slowed last year, and the EU and U.K. weakened near-term standards, while the new U.S. administration rolled back federal rules and curbed state-based regulatory tools.
Despite these setbacks, new ICCT analysis shows that momentum in global EV sales continues to build, driven primarily by emerging markets. The global EV sales share reached ~25 percent in the first half of 2025, up from 21 percent in 2024. While China remained the largest electric passenger car market, the fastest growth occurred in emerging economies such as Vietnam (40 percent), Thailand (28 percent), Türkiye (22 percent), and Indonesia (14 percent), fueled by fiscal policies, domestic manufacturing, and cost-competitive Chinese imports.
However, a substantial gap between today’s electrification rates and Paris Agreement goals persists, especially for heavy-duty trucks. Closing the gap requires converting proposals and non-binding EV targets into binding policies, as well as expanding the types of vehicles covered by clean vehicle policies. ICCT continues to support governments in growing economies in strengthening policy implementation and advancing clean transportation.
Global momentum for the shift to electric cooking
As concerns over gas shortages grow worldwide, electric cooking is gaining broad public attention as a viable alternative. CLASP experts on accelerating the transition to electric cooking have recently been featured in media outlets, including The Guardian.
“E-cooking offers an opportunity to reduce reliance on imported fuels while improving the efficiency of household energy use,” said CLASP India Director Neha Dhingra in The Hindu, a major Indian outlet.
For the Reuters Sustainable Switch newsletter, CLASP Chief Strategy & Impacts Officer Bishal Thapa commented: “It is important now that our collective efforts are on responding to the immediate needs of people, even as we continue to draw out the larger lessons on why a transition to the use of cleaner energy in cooking is a good strategy, both for consumer choice and energy security. Electric cooking offers a clean, safe, affordable cooking option and should be an attractive option for many countries reliant on imported fossil fuels.”
CLASP’s support for e-cooking retrofits in the U.K. and other regions could help avoid nearly 80 million tons of CO₂ emissions by 2050, highlighting the transition’s significant climate impact and policy relevance.
ITDP shares global framework to strengthen and expand high-quality public transport
Public transport is essential to urban life, connecting people to jobs and vital services. In most cities, it accounts for 40–70 percent of motorized trips. Yet public transport systems around the world are under strain. To help cities strengthen their transport systems, ITDP released a Public Transport Principles brief that provides a shared framework for governments, planners, and advocates to align on the core qualities of good public transport: good service, zero emissions, well-funded, well-managed, andfor everyone. Together, these define what makes systems effective, reliable, and just.
The brief is available in five languages and provides adaptable, globally informed guidance to support policymaking and improve evaluation of systems. To demonstrate these concepts, ITDP hosted a virtual webinar with public transport officials from the cities of Salvador, Brazil; Jakarta, Indonesia; and Guadalajara, Mexico, who shared their progress and insights, with nearly 400 people from around the world in attendance. The officials further reinforced the importance of foundational frameworks, such as ITDP’s framework for knowledge sharing and coalition building among governments and stakeholders worldwide.
The Crux Alliance’s cross-sectoral approach to grid modernization
Grid bottlenecks are emerging as a defining barrier to the energy transition—curtailing clean power, delaying connections, and raising system costs worldwide. Because EVs, heat pumps, and industrial electrification are all converging on the same infrastructure, solving this requires coordinated, systems-level thinking that no single sector can provide alone.
As an alliance spanning power, transportation, buildings, and industry, Crux is uniquely positioned to do exactly that. The Crux Alliance has launched its Grid Modernization & Flexible Electrification initiative—the first cross-sectoral project involving every Alliance member—bringing that collective expertise to bear on one of the transition’s most pressing challenges.
Phase One will produce a practical policy toolkit on grid planning, deployment, operations, and governance, due out this fall. Stay tuned for updates!
Click below to read a short article by Crux Alliance Policy Director Steve Cappana sharing the initiative’s goals and approach.
Virtual briefing: Türkiye’s net-zero future: opportunities and obstacles ahead of COP31
With a 2053 net-zero target and plans in place through 2035, Türkiye has laid important groundwork—but a comprehensive long-term roadmap is still lacking. As the host of COP31, Türkiye has a rare opportunity to demonstrate climate leadership and accelerate its own transition on the world stage.
On May 11, Crux Alliance and the International Network of Energy Transition Think Tanks are pleased to host SHURA Energy Transition Center—Türkiye’s leading independent clean energy think tank—for a candid discussion on what’s standing in the way of faster progress and where the biggest opportunities lie.
Ukraine’s Critical Raw Materials for the EU Clean Transition: Realistic Potential for EU Supply Chains
Join Forum Energii for a virtual event on April 29, 10:00–11:30 CET, focused on Ukraine’s potential in selected critical raw materials and the role it could play in diversifying EU supply chains, as well as on identifying priority actions to build a credible pipeline of EU-aligned projects.