The Summit of the BRICS in Brazil is trying to reinvent the collective approach to global problems | Jonathan Watts

AS The United States is withdrawing from the international scene, the most powerful political alliance in the world of world has met in Brazil this week to try to revive and reinvent a collective approach to the problems of the world.
The summit of the Brics nations group at the Museum of Contemporary Art at the forefront of the Guanabara bay in Rio de Janeiro is both a dress rehearsal for the Climate Climate Belém Cop30 conference in November and reprimands the richer countries that withdrew to the bunkers, launched missiles and stifled the richest regions.
Opening the Brics conference on Sunday, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva stated the disastrous global scenario. Eighty years after the defeat of fascism and the creation of the UN, “we witnessed an unrivaled collapse of multilateralism,” the Brazilian president told leaders. “Hardly won progress, such as climatic and commercial regimes, is threatened.” The autonomy of the Brics group was disputed, he warned.
Donald Trump has slapped heavy prices on several BRICS nations and has threatened even higher sanctions if the group continues to seek alternatives to the use of the dollar for international trade.
Military tensions are increasing. The United States has launched several missile attacks on One Brics Nation, Iran, which Lula denounced with the “genocide directed by Israel in Gaza”, the attack on Ukraine (by Russia, founding member of BRICS) and NATO’s decision to allocate 5% of GDP with military spending. “It is always easier to invest in war than in peace,” he said. “The fear of a nuclear disaster has returned to everyday life.”
Brazilian diplomats see the BRICS Alliance as part of a new emerging world order. Trump pushing the United States to a more island perspective of “America”, they see an opportunity for the former superpower hegemony to give way to a more equitable multi-finish system of global governance.
And in theory, the grouping of the BRICS should have the weight to browse the changes. Its 11 complete members represent 40% of the population and the world economy, and more than half of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions – to all these charges, highlighting it the G7 group of the richest and most capitalist countries ideologically, mainly from the North in the world. But the nations of the BRICS are divided and unbalanced. China has roughly the same GDP and Co2 Exit like all other members of combined BRICS.
Hence the dismay when President Xi Jinping refused to attend the talks in Rio this week. His first non-presentation summit to a BRICS was not well explained, which encourages speculation that China’s enthusiasm may have decreased.
“Internal tensions within the BRICS have increased clearly since 2014,” said Oliver Stuenkel, an associate professor at the School of International Relations of Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV) in São Paulo “and this has become even more difficult since the Russian invasion of Ukraine”.
Vladimir Putin only joined practically, apparently due to the international mandate of the criminal court for his arrest. Other notable absences were Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sissi and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, who was to attend the summit in front of the United States and Israeli attacks against his country in June and was deputy by his Minister of Foreign Affairs.
The 31 -page Janeiro Declaration of Janeiro, which was published on Sunday by the leaders, condemned the military strikes on Iran, the attacks on Gaza and the prices, but the language was relatively silent, and there were also soothing reinsurances on the importance of the dollar. Analysts said Brazil did not want to reappear on Trump’s pricing radar or antagoniser from other countries before COP30. “There was a general sense of” let’s keep that as discreet as possible “,” said Stuenkel. “Brazil considers COP30 as the most important meeting of the year. He identified climate change as a subject where he can play a leading role. ”
The BRICS Bloc considers itself a voice for the world South, which suffers disproportionately from the climate crisis. This gives a strong incentive to try to re -engage the richest parts of the world in a multilateral approach to a shared problem. The group was credited with a positive role in the Paris Agreement 10 years ago.
Before the conference, the Environment NGO Greenpeace urged BRICS leaders to fill the climate leadership vacuum cleaner left by the United States. “It is a seismic opportunity to drive daring and collaborative leadership of the South.
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In their declaration, the leaders expressed their support for multilateralism to meet the climate threat and resolved the unity to achieve the objectives of the Paris Agreement. They called for climate funding “accessible, opportune and affordable” to ensure a fair energy transition. And they praised Brazil’s plans to launch a COP30 fund to obtain long -term funding for conservation. Which will pay remains vague. “We have encouraged potential donor countries to announce ambitious contributions,” said the statement. Brazil would have asked the member states of China and the BRICS in the Middle East to be part of the donors of seeds. But most of the money should come from rich nations of the northern hemisphere, which are most to blame for the climate crisis.
There was also a decline against the EU. The declaration deplored what it called “discriminatory protectionist measures on the pretext of environmental concerns”, such as adjustments of the carbon border and movements to encourage trade without deforestation – both promoted by the EU. There was no mention of a calendar to eliminate oil, coal and gas. Instead, the declaration has recognized that “fossil fuels will always play an important role in the energy mixture of the world”. The BRICS now include several of the world’s largest producers in oil and gas, although it remains behind the G7 – especially the United States, Canada and Australia – with regard to increased production plans.
The leaders of the BRICS seem the most united in their frustration with two standards and practices of exclusion. The rewriting of the rules of global governance is the central objective of Brazil, which called for a UN reform to make it “more democratic, representative, efficient and efficient” and to increase the representation of developing countries in its main decision -making organizations. This has been part of the BRICE agenda for many years and has been aligned in part with the recent calls of scientists and civil society groups for an upheaval of United Nations structures, especially in the climate process, which was criticized last year as lobbyists exceeds fossil fuels and “not adapted to the objective”.
But if the summit of this week was an indication, there is little appetite for responsibility or transparency within the BRICS. On the first day, access to the media to national delegations was seriously limited. Civil society groups were absent, perhaps dissuaded by rows of military vehicles equipped with water cannons and hundreds of troops in the closed streets, wearing assault rifles.
Brazil, which has always been an excellent champion of multilateralism, has on paper inside and outside the conference this week, but it will face a large chasm at COP30 in November. The preparatory talks in Bonn last month almost took off from money because the EU and other rich nations refused to compensate for the missing climatic funds left by the abandonment of the United States. This problem – and the widening of war areas – seems to haunt the rally in Belém, when the world South can wonder if the new world order is an opportunity or an illusion.