Ambitions by the BRICS group to take on a greater climate leadership role, building on success last month at UN nature talks, depend on the countries overcoming fractious politics and entrenched disagreements over money.
As the US has withdrawn from global efforts to combat climate change and, more generally, shifted its focus to promoting domestic interests, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — known collectively as the BRICS — are well-placed to influence the outcomes of high-profile meetings this year.
They established their credentials by proposing a draft text that ensured agreement at the 16th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP16) talks last month in Rome, a dozen sources said, potentially unlocking billions of US dollars to help halt the destruction of ecosystems.
Illustration: Mountain People
“Now BRICS has been able to come together in this fashion, [it] will influence our discussions in other platforms going forward,” South African Deputy Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment Narend Singh said.
South Africa is boosting its profile as holder of the G20 presidency this year, while BRICS member Brazil prepares to host the UN climate conference, COP30, in November.
“BRICS can fill a space that needs to be filled at this moment in the multilateral negotiations,” said Maria Angelica Ikeda, Brazil’s chief negotiator at COP16.
Colombian Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development Susana Muhamad, president of the COP16 nature talks, said the BRICS countries were positioning to be “bridge builders.”
“They are trying to create this balance to represent the Global South in front of the far-right governments that are emerging in the US, Italy and Argentina,” she said. “I understand there’s a lot of countries wanting to join BRICS, because it’s a way, if you have to confront something like the US, you are not alone.”
A British official present at the talks, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said other countries needed to consider what the BRICS’ more muscular approach meant for global institutions.
If BRICS is to help fill the vacuum left by Washington under US President Donald Trump, it has to address internal divisions over politics and finance.
The group’s refusal to assume the official financial obligations of donor countries could prove a stumbling block, London School of Economics distinguished policy fellow Timo Leiter said.
So far, the middle-income BRICS have resisted demands from cash-strapped developed countries that they should share financial liability, complicating the quest for compromise at UN negotiations on climate funding and upcoming talks on development finance in Seville, Spain.
Of the US$25.8 billion in biodiversity-related financing in 2022, nearly three-quarters came from five sources: EU institutions, France, Germany, Japan and the US, data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development showed.
Diverging national interests among the BRICS, with Russia keen to maintain its sales of fossil fuels, while Brazil presses countries to decarbonize faster at COP30, might also prove sticking points.
“They [the BRICS] are drastically different in terms of development stage and emissions trajectory,” Asia Society China Climate Director Li Shuo (李碩) said. “What ties them together is the geopolitical aspiration which leads to the question of can they agree to put forward an affirmative agenda.”
A test of the group’s solidarity could be at a meeting in Bonn, Germany, in June where countries begin to set out their COP30 negotiating positions, analysts said.
The Financing for Development conference in Seville in June could also prove pivotal, with ministers set to discuss global sustainability goals and ongoing reform of the international financial system.
“This will be the perfect entry point for BRICS to advance their aim of changing the global order and having a stronger say in the global financial system,” Leiter said. “The new US position is almost a gift.”
Shorter-term, the BRICS are likely to renew demands for more say in the running of the Global Environment Facility (GEF), which disburses much of the world’s biodiversity finance.
GEF reform is a focus as richer countries cut development spending while demanding nature-rich countries do more to protect ecosystems such as the Amazon.
“It’s a problem that instead of having more money directed to nature and to biodiversity, we have countries updating their nuclear weapons, or buying more armaments,” Ikeda said. “At the same time, they’re demanding from us, the mega-diverse countries more and more obligations.”
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