What happened: MoEFCC-led BRICS senior officers’ meeting on environment and climate priorities

Under India’s BRICS Chairship 2026, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC), Government of India, hosted a Senior Officers’ Meeting of the BRICS Environment Working Group and the Contact Group on Climate Change and Sustainable Development. The meeting was held in Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi on 17 August 2026 and was chaired by Secretary, MoEFCC, Shri Tanmay Kumar.

Senior officers from BRICS member countries participated. The BRICS member countries named in the meeting communication were Brazil, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, Russia, South Africa, and United Arab Emirates.

In his keynote address, MoEFCC’s chairperson highlighted how BRICS has moved beyond an economic dialogue toward an increasingly influential platform for environmental challenges such as pollution, biodiversity loss, and global warming. The chairperson also described BRICS partnership expansion into sustainable development, climate resilience and adaptation, resource efficiency and the circular economy, along with environmental governance.

The keynote address connected the BRICS 2026 agenda to India’s Prime Minister’s “humanity-first” vision of people-centric global cooperation. The meeting communication states that the BRICS 2026 theme is “Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation, and Sustainability”. The communication also states that India’s environmental action approach integrates ecological sustainability with development objectives.

The meeting communication records four priority areas that the Environment Working Group and the Contact Group advanced during India’s Chairship:

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