Ministers from BASIC countries to meet over climate change next week in Brazil

Ministers from BASIC countries - Brazil, South Africa, India and China - will meet on July 25 and 26, in Rio de Janeiro, to exchange views on climate change issues. Representatives of the four countries are expected to deepen the debate on key issues in the international climate negotiations, such as financing for adaptation and mitigation actions, reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD), and criteria for setting limits on greenhouse gas emissions. The meeting will also address equity issues, relating to the burden sharing of the remaining carbon space in the atmosphere.

The meeting, to be held at the Botanical Garden of Rio de Janeiro, will be preceded by an expert meeting on equity and discussion rounds among negotiators from the four countries, scheduled for July 23 and 24. After that, the ministers will visit the Tapajós National Forest, near Santarém, in the State of Pará, in the Amazon region, where they will be introduced to experiences in sustainable forest management and the Brazilian strategy to fight deforestation.

This will be the fourth ministerial meeting of BASIC countries, an informal group which has been regularly meeting in the last two years and which has been very active in the context of the negotiations on the international regime on climate change. The first ministerial meeting was held in November 2009, in Beijing, China.

After the last meeting in Cape Town, South Africa, last April, representatives from the four countries signed a joint statement reaffirming their determination to continue to show leadership in acting on climate change and, in accordance with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), their commitment to take ambitious nationally appropriate mitigation actions, as announced in Copenhagen. The participating countries expect to reach a deal on a comprehensive package at the next Conference of the Parts of the Convention (COP-16), scheduled to take place in Cancun, Mexico, next December.

The meeting in Rio will be an opportunity for the Ministers of BASIC countries to build on the discussion held in the last meetings and elaborate areas in which progress can be made in the run-up to Cancun.

The fifth meeting of the BASIC group is scheduled for October, in China.