THE BRICS countries are united by the collective goal of combating climate change.
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countries → unite → change
As BRICS membership has expanded, so has the potential for the BRICS countries to contribute to the global green transition.
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countries → expand → transition
This is especially true regarding climate finance and technology, where the BRICS collectively possess deep capacities.
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BRICS → regard → capacities
Recent international challenges have strengthened the case for BRICS cooperation.
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challenges → strengthen → cooperation
According to the OECD, the United States’ aid cuts resulted in the largest ever decline in foreign aid on record in 2025, while growth in global climate finance lost momentum.
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growth → accord → momentum
In June, the World Bank scrapped its target requiring 45pc of its financing to produce climate co-benefits, a move widely tied to US pressure.
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Bank → scrap → pressure
That makes practical South-South cooperation a necessity in global green finance and technology.
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cooperation → make → finance
The BRICS-founded New Development Bank provides the institutional basis for mobilising resources, with a solid pipeline of projects.
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Bank → found → projects
The NDB took shape while BRICS countries were simultaneously negotiating the Paris Agreement.
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countries → take → Agreement
The bank became fully operational in 2016 — the year the Paris Agreement entered into force.
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Agreement → become → force
This means that unlike earlier development banks, the NDB was designed when climate was already a top global concern.
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climate → mean → banks
This enabled members to embed green finance into the NDB from day one.
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This → enable → day
The treaty establishing the NDB — the bank’s supreme legal instrument — tasks it with mobilising resources “for infrastructure and sustainable development projects”.
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treaty → establish → projects
What this means for climate finance is spelled out in plans and policies.
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means → spell → plans
The NDB’s 2022-26 general strategy targets 40pc of financing to be approved for climate mitigation and adaptation.
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40pc → target → mitigation
The same strategy rules out financing any new coal-fired power capacity.
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strategy → rule → capacity
The NDB approved $5.59 billion in climate finance during 2022-25, representing 44pc of total financing over the period and beating its own 40pc target during this period.
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NDB → approve → period
While these activities are similar to those of other development banks, the NDB has engaged in legal experimentation that reflects its nature as an institution wholly owned by emerging economies and developing countries.
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that → engage → economies
Its green debt framework, while designed to align with the global benchmark Green Bond Principles and broadly consistent with the sustainable finance taxonomy of the European Union, also leaves scope to issue bonds aligned with the standards of individual BRICS members.
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framework → design → members
The bank has also pursued local currency financing to reduce foreign exchange and other risks to borrowers.
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bank → pursue → borrowers
Its first green bond was denominated in the renminbi and was the first green bond issued by an international institution in China’s domestic market.
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bond → denominate → market
In 2025, local currency financing accounted for about 46pc of new project approvals, a record share, mainly in renminbi, rand and rupee.
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financing → account → renminbi
However, the vast majority of the NDB portfolio remains denominated in US dollars.
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majority → denominate → dollars
After a decade of operations, the NDB has established itself as a growing source of climate finance.
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NDB → establish → finance
With the expanding of membership, the bank’s strategy during the next five-year period is likely to continue to target greater financing in member currencies while strengthening focus on technologies.
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strategy → continue → technologies
However, the NDB’s impact is constrained by the bank’s scale.
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impact → constrain → scale
Since inception, the NDB has approved almost $43 billion by early 2026 across all projects.
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NDB → approve → projects
That is meaningful for the Global South, but scaling the BRICS contribution to climate action requires direct cooperation among the BRICS members.
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scaling → scale → members
The members of the grouping recently started to explore the potential for closer climate cooperation within BRICS frameworks, welcoming a memorandum of understanding on a BRICS Carbon Market Partnership in 2024.
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members → start → 2024
In 2025, the BRICS leaders endorsed a broad climate leadership agenda and adopted a cooperation framework for climate finance.
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leaders → endorse → finance
In addition to potential cooperation on a BRICS Carbon Markets Partnership to share expertise, build capacity and link carbon markets with climate finance, the framework identified potential to develop a catalogue of national sustainable finance taxonomies to identify areas of convergence, while also considering promotion of “interoperability” of different approaches.
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framework → share → approaches
This activity to promote cross-border green finance flows could draw lessons from the EU-China (later joined by Singapore) common ground taxonomy and ASEAN’s sustainable finance taxonomy.
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activity → promote → taxonomy
Another 2025 document proposed options for enhancing BRICS cooperation on climate tech, including setting up a BRICS climate “patent pool”, as one of several non-binding models, alongside humanitarian and open-licensing proposals, to widen access to climate-related technologies.
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document → propose → technologies
The key question is how many of these activities will be put into practice and how many will remain on paper only.
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many → put → paper
The voluntary, non-legally binding format of BRICS cooperation provides flexibility but can also mean limited clarity about how to implement plans and assess results.
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format → provide → results
Finally, BRICS climate action could be strengthened through deeper engagement with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change institutions and other development banks.
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action → strengthen → institutions
Following the BRICS leaders’ call on multilateral development banks to enhance collaboration with climate funds, the NDB could explore partnership agreements with the Green Climate Fund and the Adaptation Fund.
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NDB → follow → Fund
The NDB could also build on its initial engagement with the UNFCCC’s technology transfer body, the Climate Technology Centre & Network, to develop a pipeline of de-risked climate-tech projects.
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NDB → build → projects
While the NDB already participates in the Multilateral Development Bank climate action group, with common methodologies and joint reporting, it has engaged in little joint lending with other MDBs, unlike the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.
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it → participate → Bank
Greater co-financing would be another way to stretch the NDB’s resources.
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financing → stretch → resources
…and 3 more, not listed.
The Aporia
