Reporting by Mathew Carr

–*See clarification below

Nov. 8, 2024 — The BASIC group of nations — (Brazil, China, India and South Africa) say this to UNFCCC and they seek action at climate talks the next two weeks:

BASIC “is of the view that UNFCCC Parties are obligated to send a clear and strong signal of commitment to multilateralism and global cooperation as the most effective and just manner to respond to climate change and consider concerns with unilateral trade-restrictive measures based on climate objectives, while calling on all partners to strive for cooperative solutions and partnerships for stimulating the production and trade access for sustainable goods and services in line with existing legal provisions.”

The four huge nations are pushing back harder against moves by developed nations to protect their own economies as 7 billion of the world’s 8 billion population suffer disproportionate pain from climate change.

America, with about 4% of the global population, has put about a quarter of the heat-trapping gas into the atmosphere the past two centuries. That’s a huge injustice.

The EU and other developed-country blocs are now seeking to limit imports of goods such as steel and electric vehicles from emerging countries they deem not tackling the climate crisis in the correct fashion. One measure being targetted by BASIC is the EU carbon border adjustment mechanism, known as CBAM, being implemented over the next few years.

This combination of trade and environment policy is a breach of sovereignty and a breach of at least 10 multilateral commitments by rich nations, the emerged nations say in the following document.

The document is dated Nov. 5, the same day Mr Donald Trump, the world’s most famous climate-change denier, re-won the White House promising protection for US industry, including vast new tariffs against China. (So the document is probably not personally pushing back against Mr Trump. Still, both sides of US politics effectively were proposing “Make America Great Again” policies …spinning themselves into global victims by pretending they have not been doing “great” recently).

Published today (Nov. 8) by UNFCCC secretariat:

https://unfccc.int/documents/642615

The group of hugely important countries are clearly stating the global climate crisis does not need to be intractable like the rich countries are pretending it is.

“Unilateral trade-restrictive measures adopted by developed country Parties under the guise of climate objectives represent a systemic concern with disproportionate adverse effects on developing country Parties,” they said.

(More to come; clarifies specifics of wrongdoing, recasts the countries as “emerged” rather than “emerging”)

[*Clarifies that the document was dated Nov. 5, so it was published before Mr Trump won the presidency again.]

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