Presentation short abstract

The contribution critically analyzes decarbonization discourses of three BRICS+ countries: Brazil, China, Saudi-Arabia. It applies the structural limitations of the decarbonization state to evaluate their approaches to social-ecological provisioning, economic planning and geopolitical relations.

Presentation long abstract

This contribution critically analyzes decarbonization discourses of three BRICS+-countries (Brazil, China, Saudi-Arabia) using the theoretical framework of “structural limitations of the decarbonization state” (Brand et al., 2025). The framework combines the avoid-shift-improve (ASI) model with traditional state functions – growth, legitimacy, security – questioning the ability of contemporary state structures to countervail planetary crises.

Saudi-Arabia’s ecomodernist strategy ('decarbonization without defossilization') fuels the global fossil backlash – both materially and discursively – and plans economic diversification through the Public Investment Fund. While practicing strategic “polyalignment” (Alami et al. 2025), especially with China, the strategy aims to delay the end of US fossil hegemony. Brazil is similarly hedging against US demise, e.g. by opening a BYD electric car factory in Bahía. Brazil’s postcolonial discourse refers to common but differentiated responsibilities both globally and domestically – to reduce geographically uneven development between federal states and between Global North and South. China’s discourse centers “ecological civilization”, an ambitious whole-of-society approach to sustainability. China uses its economic planning capacity for “better growth and seeking quality over quantity” (Xinhua, 2024).

While none of the countries can be classified as degrowth-prone transformation states, there are varying degrees of social-ecological provisioning (Dengler and Plank, 2024) within the BRICS+. They converge in their ecomodernist and state capitalist approach (Alami and Dixon 2024), which might spark more extractive and neocolonial violence at resource frontiers. The BRICS+ decarbonization pathways will contribute to geopolitical conflict and planetary overshoot if the Global North remains unwilling to release ecological space through degrowth (Hickel, 2021).