Emerging powers, emerging leadership: climate change leadership by the emerging economies of the developing world: assessing Brazil’s climate change policies under a climate change leadership framework

© 2015 Lina Maria Puerto ChavesLeadership in the climate change regime is understood as a necessary condition to overcome the collective action problems that may produce inaction and socially undesirable outcomes (Young, 1991). The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) institutionalized climate change leadership according to the principle of Common But Differentiated Responsibilities and Respective Capabilities (CBDR+RC) by setting the preconditions for developed countries to take the lead in reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (Christoff and Eckersley, 2013). From this perspective, countries in the developing world should not be required to make binding commitments to reduce their emissions, even though several of these countries were already emerging as thriving economies that currently rank among the top GHG emitters (WRI, 2014). The paradigm under which CBDR+RC informed the leadership obligation in the UNFCCC has lost its relevance in a changing world order (Gupta, 2014). This has opened the space for a dynamic interpretation of CBDR+RC to account for the fact that the emissions from developing countries are exacerbating climate change, which is driving these countries to become the historical emitters of the future. An increased awareness about the responsibility of developing countries in the climate change problem and the demand for leadership from them is higher than ever before. Based on this growing demand, developing countries have started taking voluntary actions to reduce emissions under national government initiatives (UNFCCC, 2014b). This reflects a changing discourse in which developing countries are no longer exempted from reducing GHG emissions and adopting low-carbon development pathways (Gupta, 2014). To measure climate change leadership, Saul and Seidel (2011) provide an initial model indicator. It encompasses the five climate change leadership forms: directional (unilateral), structural, instrumental (problem solving or entrepreneurial), idea-based (intellectual) and institutional. Brazil’s climate change policies were assessed under such framework. Based on the assessment, it appears that Brazil’s outstanding climate change leadership highlights are currently on track to being neglected with the recent engagement in intensive fossil fuel development pathways. This threatens Brazil’s reputation as a clean energy economy that has managed, so far, to decouple GHG emissions from its economic growth (EIS, 2010)