By Manuela Andreoni and Lisandra Paraguassu
RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) -Leaders of the BRICS group of developing nations addressed the shared challenges of global warming on Monday, the final day of their summit in Rio de Janeiro, demanding that wealthy nations fund mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions in poorer nations.
In his opening remarks, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who will host the United Nations climate summit in November, also blasted denialism of the climate emergency, indirectly criticizing U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to pull his country out of the 2015 Paris Agreement.
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“Today, denialism and unilateralism are eroding past achievements and harming our future,” he said. “The Global South is in a position to lead a new development paradigm without repeating the mistakes of the past.”
Trump took issue on Sunday with veiled criticism from the BRICS group, accusing the bloc of having “anti-American policies” and threatening them with extra 10% tariffs. BRICS members brushed off his accusation and reaffirmed their commitment to a multilateral world.
In his comments to leaders at the Rio summit, Lula urged a global transition away from fossil fuels, the main drivers of climate change.
But a joint statement from BRICS leaders released on Sunday argued that petroleum will continue to play an important role in the global energy mix, particularly in developing economies – in another sign that the increasingly heterogeneous BRICS group faces challenges finding a unified position on major issues.
“We live in a moment of many contradictions in the whole world. The important thing is that we are willing to overcome these contradictions,” Brazil’s Environment Minister Marina Silva said on the sidelines of the summit, when asked about the plans to extract oil off the coast of the Amazon rainforest.
In their joint statement, BRICS leaders also underscored that providing climate finance “is a responsibility of developed countries towards developing countries,” which is the standard position for emerging economies in global negotiations.
But their declaration also mentioned the group’s support for a fund that Brazil proposed to protect endangered forests – the Tropical Forests Forever Facility – as a way for developing economies to fund climate change mitigation beyond the mandatory requirements imposed on wealthy nations by the Paris Agreement.
China and the UAE signaled in meetings with Brazilian Finance Minister Fernando Haddad in Rio that they plan to invest in the fund, two sources with knowledge of the discussions told Reuters last week.
The joint statement from BRICS leaders also blasted policies such as carbon border taxes and anti-deforestation laws, which Europe has recently adopted, for imposing what they called “discriminatory protectionist measures” under the pretext of environmental concerns.
(Reporting by Manuela Andreoni and Lisandra Paraguassu; Additional reporting from Rodrigo Viga Gaier; Editing by Will Dunham, Brad Haynes and Rod Nickel)