MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Brazil's Silva highlights BRICS' potential for just ecological transition

Silva stressed the importance of countries raising their environmental ambitions

Brazil's Environment and Climate Change Minister Marina Silva Thursday highlighted the BRICS group's potential to lead a just global ecological transition. She made those remarks during the bloc's 11th ministerial meeting in this regard, where issues like desertification, ecosystem preservation, plastic pollution, and climate action aligned with the UN's Agenda 2030 were discussed.

Representing half the world's population and 39% of global Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the BRICS nations' ambitious greenhouse gas reduction targets forecast tangible results for its work plan of 50 practical activities for environmental cooperation from 2024 to 2027.

Silva highlighted the ability of Brazil, Russia, China, India, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia, Indonesia, and Iran to deliver concrete achievements.

“We represent around half of the world's population and 39% of global GDP,” she underlined. “More than ever, the BRICS [countries] are increasingly fertile spaces for innovation, rich in cultural diversity, with strategic resources and an immense quantity and quality of natural capital,” she added.

The ministerial encounter aims to delve into four themes: desertification, land degradation and drought; preserving and valuing ecosystem services; plastic pollution and waste ingestion; and collective leadership for climate action, with synergies with Agenda 2030, which is the United Nations (UN) global action plan to promote sustainable development by that year.

The subjects were proposed by the Brazilian presidency to the BRICS Working Group on Environment to guide the activities that will result in the ministerial declaration and the annual work plan. The final texts will define the routes to be followed by the countries in their environmental cooperation activities between 2024 and 2027.

According to Silva, the work plan that will be presented at the end of the ministerial meeting is the result of months of negotiation between the technical teams of the BRICS countries and provides for around 50 practical activities on topics such as air quality, environmental education, biodiversity, waste and chemical management, water resources, coastal and maritime zones and climate change.

Silva picked up on the theme of a joint effort launched by the president-designate for the 30th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30), André Corrêa do Lago. She called on countries to unite in the face of the impacts of climate change, which are already being felt by everyone.

“The impacts on our populations, especially the most vulnerable, natural ecosystems and economies require concrete and urgent measures to increase the current pace of greenhouse gas emission reductions,” she said.

The minister recalled that in 2023, at COP28 in Dubai, countries agreed on the Global Stocktake (GST). The Paris Agreement tool, in addition to showing how far countries have progressed in reducing emissions, also sets targets of tripling renewable energy production, doubling energy efficiency, and starting the transition towards ending the use of fossil fuels and deforestation.

To this end, Silva stressed the importance of countries raising their ambitions in the presentation of the third generation of the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC). So far, among the BRICS members, only Brazil and the United Arab Emirates have presented their targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

“This is a fundamental step towards ensuring the implementation of the commitments we have made so far in the Convention on Climate Change. Brazil did its homework and presented in Baku [the capital of Azerbaijan] the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by between 59% and 67% by 2035, compared to 2005,” she emphasized.

Silva also recalled the need to expand and strengthen climate finance mechanisms so that all countries can make progress in protecting nature, valuing ecosystem services, and adapting to the global crisis. “Let's plan for change, avoiding its undesirable effects as much as possible, before we are tragically and relentlessly changed by it,” she concluded. (Source: Agencia Brasil)