BRICS New Delhi Declaration Pledges Climate Action, but Greens See Non-Binding Rhetoric

BRICS leaders adopted the New Delhi Declaration at their September 2026 summit, pledging stronger cooperation on climate adaptation, biodiversity conservation, water resources, and waste management. The declaration backs the BRICS Carbon Markets Partnership and calls for more climate finance from developed countries, but it does not set binding emissions targets or create penalties for missing them. Environmentalists quoted by ETV Bharat say the document is mostly aspirational. They point out that major BRICS members like China and India are still expanding coal and fossil fuel infrastructure, and that the declaration lacks enforcement mechanisms. The real test, they argue, is whether the group converts these commitments into tracked, verifiable action, especially around carbon markets and grassroots biodiversity data.