Willing Power, Fearing Responsibilities: BASIC in the Climate Negotiations

The exponential growth in global populations, economic activity and resource utilization means it is becoming increasingly difficult to satisfy global demand for a number of fundamental resources, while some key ecosystems services are under stress. The likelihood of future resource scarcities have begun to influence the positions taken within international climate change negotiations by fast-growing developing countries. When Brazil, South Africa, India, and China formed the BASIC group it took many by surprise. The coordination needed to align this heterogeneous group of countries cannot simply be understood in terms of a set of shared interests around climate policy. How the BASIC group emerged and the nature of its cooperation on climate change are examined within the broader context in which these increasingly powerful countries came to join forces. Although traditionally aligned with the G77 group of developing countries, recent strategising as a group of emerging economies reflects their realization that there are insufficient global resources available to follow the same development pathway as industrialized countries. Hence, they must seek alternative growth pathways, which requires establishing common ground while also keeping track of each others' positions on important global issues like climate change.

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“…Indeed, it makes a lot of sense not to distinguish themselves from the larger Global South collective (Tabau & Lemoine, 2012).…”

Section: Distinguishing Basic From the G77mentioning

confidence: 99%

Rising powers: the evolving role of BASIC countries

et al. 2013

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“…Moreover, the graduation of rising powers itself would have reduced the bargaining power of developing countries in negotiations over climate finance: losing the bargaining chip of contributions of rising powers to the mitigation of climate change in exchange for more assistance could have negatively influenced overall funding levels. Together, developing countries thus kept criticizing the GEF and its procedures, and they relentlessly repeated their calls for greater contributions by developed countries (Bodansky et al 2017: 101;Hallding et al 2011;Hochstetler 2012;Jamieson 2014: 35;Minas 2013;Qi 2011;Tabau and Lemoine 2012).…”

Section: Conflicting Interestsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Unmaking of Special Rights

Dingwerth,

Weinhardt,

Eckl

et al. 2024

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This book is the product of a collaborative effort the five of us undertook over the last five years. Because the analytical framework we follow in our study is a product of joint reflection, discussion, writing, and rewriting, and because we collectively reviewed every single chapter multiple times, our book is best described as a co-authored monograph. At the same time, and as usual in projects of this kind, we have divided the empirical work along the issue areas we cover. As a result, the primary responsibility for each empirical chapter rests with individual team members whom we identify at the beginning of each chapter.

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“…In the early 2000s, the BASIC governments were sending one or two dozen delegates each to the annual negotiations. By the 2009 COP, their delegation sizes were 77 for India, 112 for South Africa, 333 for China, and over 500 for Brazil! 4 After their first meeting in 2009, BASIC increasingly adopted common positions and coordinated their negotiation strategies (Hallding et al, 2013; Qi, 2011; Tabau and Lemoine, 2012). BASIC’s impact was immediate.…”

Section: The Power Shift: Emerging Economies and The Politics Of Diffmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In Copenhagen, one of the main negotiating goals of BASIC was to fight off any demands for specific or binding targets for emission reductions. They presented a united front on this question and were ultimately successful – after striking a deal with the United States – in steering the negotiations toward softer pledges (Tabau and Lemoine, 2012). From this point forward, any reliance on binding targets and timetables had effectively ‘fallen off the negotiating table’ (McGee and Steffek, 2016, p. 38).…”

Section: A Grand Bargain Through Strategic Cooptationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Finally, the formation of BASIC in 2009 helped emerging economies protect themselves against distributive strategies, both power bargaining and rhetorical coercion. This was especially so because the BASIC countries, individually and as a group, carefully cultivated their identity as standard‐bearers for the developing world and adopted positions accordingly (Tabau and Lemoine, 2012). As a group, they were able to pool their political resources and were less susceptible to ‘divide‐and‐conquer’ strategies often used by established powers against weaker states.…”

Section: A Grand Bargain Through Strategic Cooptationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Emerging Powers and Differentiation in Global Climate Institutions

Thompson

2020

Global Policy

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The Paris Agreement on climate change brought states from the North and South together under a common framework to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. This was a remarkable institutional adjustment for a regime that had always maintained a strict distinction between developed and developing countries and imposed meaningful obligations only on the former. To better understand this change, I look at the negotiations surrounding the issue of 'differentiation'. The rising emissions of the emerging economies created a demand for institutional change on the part of key industrialized countries; however, they faced resistance from the increasingly assertive BASIC group (Brazil, South Africa, India and China). The challengers ultimately adopted strategic cooptation as their main negotiation strategy, offering compromises in the areas of climate finance and the legal form of new commitments. The climate case sheds light on the impact of power shifts in the domain of global environmental governance and illustrates that calls for change sometime comes from established rather than rising powers. Policy Implications • The success of the global climate regime will depend on its ability to attract participation by a large number of heterogeneous states, from the developed and developing world alike. This implies that debates over 'common but differentiated responsibilities' will remain a central part of the negotiations.

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Willing Power, Fearing Responsibilities: BASIC in the Climate Negotiations

Cited by 5 publications

References 0 publications

Rising powers: the evolving role of BASIC countries

Rising powers: the evolving role of BASIC countries

The Unmaking of Special Rights

Emerging Powers and Differentiation in Global Climate Institutions

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