Promising areas of BRICS countries' cooperation in achieving carbon neutrality

Purpose: to develop proposals for BRICS countries to cooperate in achieving carbon neutrality.

Methods: the study used a range of methods, including inductive-deductive, economic-statistical, comparative analysis, abstraction, etc.

Results: the article presents calculations of the carbon intensity of GDP and greenhouse gas emissions of the BRICS+ countries, in which China, India and Russia are leading within the group. Overall, the BRICS+ countries account for more than half of global greenhouse gas emissions, the main cause of which is the use of fossil fuels. The variability of the timeframes for achieving carbon neutrality by the BRICS+ countries is identified and the lack of corresponding goals for the new countries of the association (Iran, Egypt, and Ethiopia) is highlighted. Based on an analysis of the ways in which BRICS countries can implement their national-level contributions to decarbonization, key tools and solutions have been identified to overcome the barrier of cross-border carbon regulation.

Conclusions and Relevance: the BRICS+ countries, while unanimously recognizing the need to achieve carbon neutrality, have a flexible approach to energy transition, which maintains their own priorities in fossil fuel import and export operations, and do not foresee the refusal to use the fossil fuel in the near future. Among the possible scenarios for decarbonizing national economies – reducing greenhouse gas emissions or adapting to climate change – the BRICS countries tend to follow the adaptive path of implementing climate strategies, demonstrating their variability in terms of the ambition of their goals, the priority given to them, and the methods of implementing decarbonization tools. It is promising for the countries of the association to create the single carbon market, to mutually recognize the carbon units, and approve their verifiers.

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