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This article discusses the role of China, Russia, India and Brazil in the climate regime. It describes the trajectory of their emissions, of their domestic policies and of their international commitments, and argues that, despite their responsibility in causing the problem, they have been conservative forces in the climate regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two main drivers shape the global governance of climate change: "climate power" and climate commitment. Climate power refers to the level of influence of certain agents over the climate social outcome at the systemic level. Climate commitment recalls the fact that the logic of global climate governance is also defined by the interaction of reformist and conservative forces, with the former willing to take post-sovereigntist measures to tackle the crisis, and the latter resisting any major changes in the way business is conducted. This article analyses the role of Brazil in global climate governance, considering both climate power and climate commitment. It argues that the country transitioned from a conservative great climate power to a moderate conservative position over the last decade, based on three pillars: reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, the adoption of domestic climate policies, and a shift in its international standing on the issue. However, since 2011 the process has stalled and partially reversed. The aim of this article is to address that transformation and explore its perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last five years, climate change has been established as a central civilizational driver of our time. As a result of this development, the most diversified social processes -- as well as the fields of science which study them -- have had their dynamics altered. In International Relations, this double challenge could be explained as follows: 1) in empirical terms, climate change imposes a deepening of cooperation levels on the international community, considering the global common character of the atmosphere; and 2) to International Relations as a discipline, climate change demands from the scientific community a conceptual review of the categories designed to approach the development of global climate governance. The goal of this article is to discuss in both conceptual and empirical terms the structure of global climate change governance, through an exploratory research, aiming at identifying the key elements that allow understanding its dynamics. To do so, we rely on the concept of climate powers. This discussion is grounded in the following framework: we now live in an international system under conservative hegemony that is unable to properly respond to the problems of interdependence, among which -- and mainly --, the climate issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]