Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Forest Policy and Economics journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/forpol Policy forum: Nationally-determined climate commitments of the BRICS: At the forefront of forestry-based climate change mitigation Manan Bhan, Dhruba Sharma 1 , Ashwin A.S., Swapan Mehra ⁎ IORA Ecological Solutions, New Delhi 110030, India ARTICLE INFO Keywords: CO 2 emissions Forestry sector Climate mitigation NDCs REDD + ABSTRACT There exists significant potential for climate mitigation actions from the Forestry Sector among the BRICS, a group of some of the largest economies in the world. In the run-up to the Paris Climate Summit in December 2015, all parties to the UNFCCC outlined their climate action commitments for the next decade and beyond, in the form of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). This article evaluates the commitments of the BRICS countries and critically analyses the Forestry Sector-specific climate mitigation actions. We find a demonstrable focus on this sector, indicating its leading role towards climate mitigation. Further south-south cooperation and knowledge sharing can bring about additional gains towards innovations in increasing carbon sinks, reducing emissions from forests, building tools for robust Safeguards Information Systems (SIS) and accessing climate finance instruments including, but not limited to, forest carbon financing mechanisms like REDD + in these countries. 1. Introduction The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), in Article 2 of its charter, states its objective of achieving the ‘stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system’ (UNFCCC, 1992). Activities under the UNFCCC framework have focused on this objective since its inception in 1992. In December 2015, the Paris Agreement (hereafter, referred to as ‘the Agreement’) was adopted by the member countries of the UNFCCC to outline the post-2020 global climate action agenda. As part of the Agreement, member countries committed ‘to limit the increase in global average temperatures to below 2°C, to pursue efforts to limit the in- crease to 1.5°C and to achieve net zero emissions towards the second half of the century’ (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change: Twenty-first Session of the Conference of the Parties, 2015). The Agreement came into force on 4 November 2016, with 147 of 197 member states having ratified it. In the preparation of the Agreement, member states were en- couraged to publicly outline their national climate actions, in the form of Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs). These INDCs reflected country-level emissions targets that would be regularly up- dated, forming the basis of national mitigation and adaptation com- mitments. For member states which have ratified the Agreement and look forward to its implementation, the INDCs are no longer ‘intended’, but actionable as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). The NDCs have been designed to link national policies, circum- stances and capabilities, with a global framework for collective action. They make it possible to track progress and encourage countries to achieve the long-term objectives of the Agreement. Notwithstanding recent setbacks to this process, the Agreement represents a cornerstone for global climate action. The Forestry Sector has been identified as one of the major thrust areas for achieving climate change mitigation objectives. The reasons for such prominence include the potential for direct social, ecological and economic impacts on-the-ground, and several other co-benefits, especially in developing countries. These critical aspects have resulted in the Forestry Sector being accorded a special status (Lebedys and Li, 2014). Such status has been reinforced in the Agreement, where the Forestry Sector is the only sector that finds a special mention, with Article 5 emphasizing the need to decrease emissions from forests and sustainably conserve Carbon stocks held in forestlands. A result-oriented global climate action framework requires the wholehearted participation of the five major developing economies in the world: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. These coun- tries, collectively known as the BRICS, constitute more than 40% of the world's population on nearly 30% of the world's total geographical area, and are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2017.09.013 Received 3 June 2017; Received in revised form 18 September 2017; Accepted 26 September 2017 ⁎ Corresponding author at: IORA Ecological Solutions, New Delhi, India. 1 Current affiliation: National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), Bangalore, India. E-mail addresses: ashwin@ioraecological.com (A.S. Ashwin), swapan@ioraecological.com (S. Mehra). Forest Policy and Economics 85 (2017) 172–175 1389-9341/ © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. MARK