Convergence of BRICS+ countries to deal with climate crisis and green transition – Mehr News Agency | RCO News Agency

According to Mehr news agency, citing BRICS TV, the climate crisis has forced the world to fundamentally redefine its relationship with nature. Many countries have set goals to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, but climate data shows that global warming is accelerating.

Antonio Guterres, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, spoke about the experience of the Earth’s “boiling season” in the fall of 2023 and warned that the climate crisis has practically begun. This record did not last long, and the following summer, average temperatures exceeded the 1.5°C threshold set in the Paris Agreement. The consequences of this trend, from the expansion of deserts in the south to the melting of the polar ice caps in the north, are clearly visible, and the financial losses from natural disasters exceed 500 billion dollars annually.

In such a situation, experts emphasize that the climate agenda has moved from theoretical discussions about the speed of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to practical measures to adapt to climate change. Alexandra Kudzagova, an environmental law expert, says that the countries of the world have come to the conclusion that rapid adaptation to climate change is an inevitable necessity, and the international community has decided to increase the financial resources of adaptation for developing countries to 1.3 trillion dollars by 2035.

BRICS Plus countries are each facing different challenges. China has experienced unprecedented floods in recent years, and Brazil has faced extreme heat waves and massive forest fires. In Russia, rising temperatures have caused the melting of permafrost, which covers more than 60% of the country’s land, threatening infrastructure such as buildings, roads, and pipelines. According to the sixth report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Russia’s temperature has increased two and a half times the global average, and Moscow is among the fastest warming cities along with Tehran and Calcutta.

In addition, rising sea levels have put cities such as Shanghai, Mumbai, Rio de Janeiro and Vladivostok at risk; An issue that is doubly important considering that 40% of the world’s population lives less than 100 kilometers from the coast.

Since 2015, at the 7th summit of this group in Ufa, the BRICS countries announced their readiness to deal with climate change, and since then, cooperation in this area has expanded. Genevieve Dunlon-May, an independent researcher, emphasizes the central role of Brazil in the coordination of the BRICS climate agenda and says that this country helped approve important documents in the field of climate finance and climate leadership at the 17th BRICS Summit in Rio de Janeiro.

Brazil has also made gains at the national level, with deforestation in the Amazon reaching its lowest level in 11 years in the twelve months to July 2025, according to statistics. This trend marks the third consecutive year of reduction in forest destruction during the presidency of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Experts believe that it is not possible to fully control the climate crisis, but it is possible to reduce the speed of global warming by switching from fossil fuels to renewable energies such as solar, wind and geothermal. China plays a key role in this direction. According to Kudzagova, the country considers the climate not an obstacle, but an engine of technological development and has invested about 290 billion dollars in renewable energy in 2024.

BRICS Plus countries also emphasize the concept of “just energy transition”; A decision that should be made without harming national economies and people’s livelihoods, and each country can choose the path that suits its conditions to achieve carbon neutrality.

Along with macro policies, future cities are also in the spotlight. The United Nations forecast shows that by 2050, the world’s urban population will increase by nearly two billion people. Therefore, BRICS cities have moved towards the use of clean energy, development of green spaces, smart waste management, and projects such as “sponge city” to increase their resilience against heat and floods.

According to experts, climate cooperation within the framework of BRICS Plus provides the possibility of technology exchange, policy coordination and joint defense of the interests of developing countries in the international arena and can play an important role in shaping a sustainable future for the world.