The 5th BRICS Ministers of Environment Meeting was held in Sao Paulo, Brazil on 15.8.2019. Acknowledging the importance of urban environmental management for improving quality of life in cities, the Environment Ministers of BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) agreed to work together to resolve the multifaceted environmental issues faced by BRICS cities.
Referring to India’s contribution to environment, Union Environment Minister, Prakash Javadekar said “We have achieved reducing energy intensity by 25% and already 78GW of renewable energy has been made possible, while at the same time forest cover has increased by nearly 15,000 sq.km and tree cover outside the forest is increasing rapidly”.
Environment Ministers agreed to establish and strengthen concrete mechanisms of implementation of the cooperation initiatives with special focus on action-oriented cooperation. The key themes of urban environmental management, contaminated areas and soil remediation, water quality, circular economy in context of sustainable consumption and production, marine litter and biodiversity were agreed to be integrated into BRICS cooperation initiatives.
The Ministers of BRICS countries urged developed countries to fulfill their commitment under the UNFCC and its Kyoto Protocol and Paris Agreement to provide means of implementation to developing countries including climate finance, technology development and transfer and capacity building support. BRICS countries reaffirmed the importance of jointly exploring new sources of financing individual, bilateral and multilateral projects, while highlighting access to financial resources as key to tackling environmental problems in the developing world.