The recent expansion of the BRICS group of countries — originally made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — has opened up a debate about their climate ambitions. Some of the group’s new members are countries whose economies rely heavily on burning fossil fuels, such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. This is also the reality for the founding members, who have significant reserves of both oil and coal, and with the exception of Brazil, have most of their energy matrix based on these fuels.
This was the context of the panel ‘Just Transition and Climate Ambition: How Committed Are the BRICS Countries?’, that approached the national realities of Brazil, South Africa and Russia to discuss what to expect in terms of climate ambitions from the group. “There are many challenges to understanding how can we see BRICS climate policies in a decolonised way”, summarized the panel moderator, Maureen Santos, who is the coordinator of Socio-Environmental Platform, at the BRICS Policy Center (read below).
The debate echoed in the following activity, ‘Towards a just energy transition: Lessons and challenges from the Global South’, which brought together experts from India and South Africa (but also from Colombia and Mexico) to debate how to manage the impacts of big renewable energy projects assuring social and economic development to the nations.
India and Brazil were also represented in a third panel at the Regional Climate Foundations this Wednesday (20). They discussed, together with Malaysia, how to act in the local level to improve thermal comfort in the cities that are facing heat waves in the world. “We need to develop strategies to finance innovative mechanisms both to appliance industry and local and cheaper solutions, as the creation of green areas in the cities, that can reduce the surroundings temperatures”, explained Victoria Santos, the energy and industry manager at Instituto Clima e Sociedade, from Brazil.
More or less ambition?
In the panel about the BRICS climate commitments, Brazil, South Africa and Russia exposed the particularities that need to be considered in the analysis of the climate ambition of each country. “All and each country is making its decisions considering it context, that is different from the other BRICS”, observed Romy Chevallier, from the South African Institute of International Affairs.
So, while Brazil is tackling the climate crisis through a low-carbon economic plan, given that its energy matrix is mainly made up of hydroelectric plants, South Africa is betting on a project that guarantees energy security for the entire population. Russia, on the other hand, could focus on nuclear generation. “Russia was a pioneer in nuclear power plants, but the tripling renewable goal is leaving behind nuclear clean energy sources”, expressed Milena Megrè, an expert in Russia from E+ Energy Transition Institute.
The main point about the energy, however, is to understand what would be the position of the group of countries with the recent enlargement, which has made the club more heterogeneous with the new members. The initial 5 countries are oil and gas producers, but the new partners are very intense fossil fuel producers. According to Megrè, in this new configuration, hold something around 50% of oil and gas reserves in the world.
“Perhaps they are thinking in influencing better how the climate policies will be shaped. Perhaps they want to slow down the ambition, but this is also potential to influence the debate in a more realistic global south perspective”, the Russian expert added.
Thinking in the climate negotiations, BRICS never acted as a group, despite some common interests. “Now, under this new conformation, it would be more likely the G77+China, with a huge diversity and plenty of differences. And so on, new challenges”, said Maria Beatriz Mello, from the Socio-environmental Platform. “In the other hand, they can push for more action in the common topics, as the finance just transition. This could be a way of reaching better results”, concluded.
