BRICS and the future of climate policy

Foster, Hailey

Item

BRICS and the future of climate policy

Foster, Hailey

Abstract

One of the most pressing contemporary political issues in need of effective leadership isclimate change. To date climate policies leaders have not introduced legislation which haseffectively mitigated greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to the level needed to protect the climate.Thus, there is a critical need for a new and functional policy. Therefore, this research wasconducted with the research question: who should lead a novel climate policy?Existing research is divided between citing developed countries, the historical leaders, ora new cooperating power led by Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS) aspotential leaders. To determine the advantageous choice between the two groups the researchwas conducted through a literature review of existing theories, and counter-arguments againstboth sides. Then, the researched continues with a theoretical drafting of a BRICS led climatepolicy to determine if creating a novel policy of this nature is possible and if so whatadvantageous characteristics could it support that historical climate policy has not. Post-researchconclusions ultimately revealed that BRICS is capable of including novel advantages in a climatepolicy which could increase its efficacy over developed-country led policies.