The BRICS Commitment on Climate Change: Process Towards an Effective Approach in the Path of Sustainable Development

Since 2008, the countries of the group known as the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) have acted as strategic partners with a twofold purpose: to change the architecture of international relations and to rearrange the balance of powers to soft balance world’s largest military power, the United States. Countries that are today classified as ‘growing economies’ are undoubtedly the highest global consumers of energy, emitting polluting agents such as those from natural gas, oil and coal, which are all responsible for the greenhouse effect. The present chapter analyzes and examines whether, within the international context, the BRICS have sought to respect the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (1992) (that is, the Doha Amendment to the Kyoto Protocol), and to establish new commitments for the period 2013–2020 under the Paris Agreement (2016). To that end, we note important political and economic aspects of the BRICS that converge—and sometimes diverge—as member countries pursue the climate change agenda, and we look at how these same aspects strengthen the decisions of the different governments of each BRICS. Of note in this examination is the role of the New Development Bank, known as the BRICS Bank, which is recognized as the driving force behind clean energy financing and for its contribution to sustainable development.