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The BASIC countries (Brazil, China, India, South Africa) have played a major role in recent climate negotiations. We argue that a focus on identities—both their individual national identities as emerging powers and their joint identity as the BASIC coalition of emerging powers—is useful for understanding the coalition’s negotiation stances and the larger negotiation dynamics between 2009 and 2011. BASIC countries maintain a hard defining line between themselves and developed states in terms of their climate obligations but accept some differentiation between themselves and other developing countries, thus adding a destabilizing third category of countries to the climate negotiations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

As South-South trade gains new weight in global exchange patterns, will environmental protection be enhanced or endangered? Environmental economists are generally optimistic that trade will lead to greater environmental protection, but see less chance of that in South-South trade; political economists make opposite arguments on both points. This article shows that South-South trade is dominated by a small set of fourteen countries, with most Southern countries continuing to be natural resource providers. Case studies of Brazil's trade with China and with its South American neighbors reveal a policy framework that supports both of the opposed arguments: Southern countries can and do consider the environmental impacts of their production and trade, but strong counter-forces limit that effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The G-77 has historically organized the participation of developing countries in multilateral environmental negotiations. This article analyses the impact of a new coalition of emerging powers -- Brazil, China, India, and South Africa as BASIC -- on the G-77's role in climate governance. While there are important benefits for both sides in their relationship, I argue that the G-77 is also disadvantaged in several concrete ways by the BASIC countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]