\n<\/p>\n
T<\/span>he Brics summit in Brazil last week revealed a loose alliance of emerging powers becoming more complex \u2013 and perhaps more consequential. For Brics, heft matters. It now counts 11 member states \u2013 including Indonesia, which joined this year \u2013 representing half the world\u2019s population and 40% of the global economy, outpacing the G7 by $20tn.<\/p>\n Yet its size hides its contradictions. The grouping\u2019s call for more inclusive global institutions sounds welcome, but there is a preponderance of autocracies within its own ranks. Brics is right that international law should be upheld in Middle Eastern conflicts. But it climbs down from its moral pedestal by condemning Ukraine\u2019s strikes on Russian infrastructure \u2013 while staying silent on Moscow\u2019s relentless attacks on civilians.<\/p>\n The acronym \u201cBric\u201d \u2013 Brazil, Russia, India and China (South Africa wouldn\u2019t join until 2010) \u2013 began as a Wall\u00a0Street bet on rising powers challenging the west. But what defines Brics today is a subtler, more strategic ambition: to insulate themselves from Washington\u2019s gravitational pull while cooperating to build a joint hi-tech industrial base. There are things that the Brics get right. Financial global institutions such as the International Monetary Fund are in need of reform; the rich world has failed to honour climate finance promises. The group\u2019s understandable response in the face of inaction is to create its own development bank to promote a form of green industrialisation.<\/p>\n A pre-summit agreement on a formal collective Brics stance on funding climate action will help. Rapid growth in renewable energy means fossil fuels now account for less than half of the bloc\u2019s total electricity generation. Given the climate emergency, such progress can only be welcome. Brics member states now lead in green tech and boast booming consumer markets \u2013 offering both the tools and the scale to drive industrial growth.<\/p>\n The postwar order stood on three pillars: US dominance, hydrocarbons and open trade. Today, all three are cracking, largely because of the US itself. Many Brics nations have little to gain from backing oil when the world\u2019s biggest producer is the US. Donald Trump\u2019s threat of higher import duties on the bloc\u2019s members speaks to the US turn against global trade. By placing tariffs on Brazil over its internal politics, Mr Trump turns economic diplomacy into personal vendetta \u2013 and highlights how the rules-based order is unravelling.<\/p>\n This moment presents both a challenge and an opening. Tariffed in the west, Chinese firms pivot to Brics. So the United Arab Emirates cashes in \u2013 winning local production and tech transfers from Beijing that the west won\u2019t permit. Brics\u2019 vision of smart, clean growth fits the gaps in the global order. But it isn\u2019t united: Russia\u2019s green potential is buried under its fossil fuel policy. Saudi Arabia hedges \u2013 flirting with Brics while clinging to the US, with deals in the balance. Most of the group\u2019s member states are nervous that a powerful China could tower over the rest. Strikingly, however, its leader, Xi Jinping, did not attend this summit.<\/p>\n The Brics nations can still close ranks. Their most technical yet revealing move is to start building financial \u201cplumbing\u201d to bypass western systems. The group isn\u2019t ditching the dollar \u2013 but its members know what exclusion feels like: India had credit denied after the 2008 crash; Iranian banks have been sanctioned since 2012. The bloc\u2019s success will depend not just on ambition, but on the capacity to coordinate across national interests.<\/p>\n Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Brics summit in Brazil last week revealed a loose alliance of emerging powers becoming more complex \u2013 and perhaps more consequential. For Brics, heft matters. It now counts 11 member states \u2013 including Indonesia, which joined this year \u2013 representing half the world\u2019s population and 40% of the global economy, outpacing the G7 by<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10775,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[3882,3881,3880,1516,3883,2266,1510,1435,3884,2184,1511],"class_list":{"0":"post-10774","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-autonomy","9":"tag-bloc","10":"tag-brics","11":"tag-editorial","12":"tag-eyes","13":"tag-growing","14":"tag-guardian","15":"tag-order","16":"tag-postwestern","17":"tag-seeks","18":"tag-view"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10774\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}