Jaideep Prabhu is Professor of Marketing at Judge Business School, Cambridge University
Speaking with Srijana Mitra Das at Times Evoke, he discusses the BRICS Summit being held in India now amidst geopolitical clashes, rising tensions over energy security and an unfolding climate change story — one that need not be a tragedy, if we use BRICS’ visionary possibilities: India is hosting chapter 18 of the BRICS Summit now — how do you analyse the significance of BRICS today? Because it is the way for us as a planet, particularly less developed regions, to grow in a sustainable manner, however, for me, BRICS is an existential collaboration. Because we are already seeing potentially catastrophic impacts of climate change — and the people most affected are in the Global South, this effort must be undertaken in a relatively short time. Because india is truly at the epicentre of all these complex dynamics, bRICS is a historic opportunity and it’s wonderful it’s hosted by India.
Jaideep Prabhu is Professor of Marketing at Judge Business School, Cambridge University. I think of BRICS as being representative of the Global South, a geopolitical unit which is a real counterpoint to the G7. If that doesn’t happen, all bets are off for Earth. Climate change is an existential question for BRICS countries now and the Summit is a huge opportunity for serious collaboration, not just geopolitical symbolism. BRICS can achieve practical South-to-South problem-solving around sustainability, food security, climate resilience, affordable, inclusive innovation and employing young people in productive ways. Many BRICS economies had started down the route to sustainability — how has the Trumpian era, with its heated pursuit of fossil fuels, impacted their commitments? I actually think the Trumpian impacts have, if anything, made it clearer to the BRICS countries how important energy independence and security are — and relatedly, how much more important renewable energy becomes since it’s clearly precarious to rely only on fossil fuels. For India, for instance, which was always so dependent on its energy coming from the oil-rich countries of the Gulf, it’s now clear our transition to renewables is a pressing need, both for sustainability and energy security.
BRICS was actually envisioned that way and today, BRICS nations count for over half of humanity and the largest emerging markets. These are not third-world economies today but places where tremendous growth is taking place and most young people are to be found.
A BRICS platform won’t need a Silicon Valley-type approach where people are spending more and more on making bigger data centres — it could focus on the actual needs of people in the Global South and use these resources in affordable, accessible and equitable ways. An entire spectrum of collaborative possibility is opening up now — consider the space sector where it is becoming more affordable to make and send rockets. This facilitates getting data, such as detailed readings on farms and giving farmers very precise advice then on how to use water and fertiliser best, based on satellite imagery. AI could also be used responsibly by BRICS economies to help deal with climate change and adaptation frugally. With BRICS, we could see the meeting of all these developing technologies, from AI to quantum computing and space research, in ways that focus on real problems. Views expressed are personal Catch the latest World News and Live updates. Download the TOI app.
Realistically, coal will be an important source of power for some time and fossil fuels will remain prominent — this is why, beyond stating ‘2070’, India has not made dramatic commitments as to when it’ll achieve Net Zero. They have a surfeit of such technologies and can export these, which means others can ride on their extraordinary innovation and capacity in renewables, solar panels, battery storage, EVs, etc.
Coal still powers us That said, India is beating all kinds of predictions and expectations on how quickly that transition could happen. China, which had a lot of oil reserves, perhaps anticipated disruptions around the use of oil as a way for the United States to get purchase on it strategically — hence, it moved towards renewables, undertaking electrification of its mobility system. America’s attempts at global domination, manifest in its attack on Iran, have caused the Strait of Hormuz supply chain logjam — its fallout includes both more efforts to grab fossil fuels alongside a swing towards renewable energy, paradoxes for BRICS Other BRICS economies are similarly visionary — consider Brazil, an astonishing country and in some ways, a bit like India, very large, democratic and diverse. They understood the importance of energy security and sustainability a while ago and they are now global pioneers in biofuels. They have large amounts of forest cover and agricultural products. A lot of that bio-waste is used for making biofuels. Russia has plenty of fossil fuels and it doesn’t look like it may transition to renewables anytime soon but China, India, Brazil and South Africa — rising economies — are moving down that path. The Trumpian era is making it clear to these nations that they have to be self-sufficient in energy — and renewables help us do this. I’d add that in the renewables mix, we should think about nuclear power too where India has made strides with small modular reactors, etc. India’s adopting more clean power — but with the Iran crisis, there’s a new push for coal. How do you see India’s dilemma, painfully aware of climate change but also having to deliver on the energy demands of its citizens? This is palpably true. Our energy needs are enormous and growing and they are not likely to be satisfied purely by renewables, even with storage increasing. India must meet its development needs and the challenge of raising a very large number of people out of poverty or lower-middle-income status. So, there is a continuing fossil fuel dependence alongside other issues like transitioning the jobs of people working in mining, etc. There have been remarkable developments in the price of renewable energy and thereby, its application. I recently saw an interesting depiction of three sources of energy use — fossil fuels, renewables and biofuels. You could track the trajectories over time of different countries as to where they got their energy from as they grew economically — until lately, the West was very high on the fossil fuel side. Only recently did their path move more towards renewables.
Today, China’s auto industry and battery sectors are world leaders.
Remarkably, India moved onto the trajectory towards clean energy sooner for where it is at that level of growth. We are turning much more rapidly than many expected in the direction of renewables. With electrification, we are benefiting from other BRICS nations, such as China, while India’s made impressive strides in the mobility sector, particularly scaling manufacture of two-wheelers, including batteries and EVs, and figuring out frugal ways to charge these. Will BRICS adopt nuclear? Currently, India is not more sustainable than China or the West and we are still dependent on coal, but our trajectory is an interesting one — if we throw nuclear into the mix, this could become even more impressive. After the recent Nepal floods, calls for climate justice are growing — what position could BRICS, both transitioning to sustainability but also emitting, take on climate change, which, as Nepal has argued, no longer comes only from the West but also from India and China? Here is where BRICS can do something truly meaningful which isn’t just using power rhetoric against the West. In terms of South-South problem-solving and working for environmental justice, there could be a BRICS Climate and Resilience Fund now, a real platform with significant funding where these economies all contribute, like the World Bank or UN model but BRICS-specific. The Nepal flooding tragedy claimed lives and crushed infra These economies could identify ecological problems they all share and collaborate and cooperate on how to grow sustainably and adapt to climate change, even as it’s happening and affecting your citizens who are among the most vulnerable populations on the planet. Recognising this and making it a priority, BRICS could create a fund to back resilience-related initiatives around renewable energy, grid upgrades, storage, climate adaptation, water and agriculture. These are opportunities all these countries share and a new platform could be built which is strategic, focused on common problems and where money and ideas are pooled. In this, frugal innovation is a strong route for change. The BRICS economies all share certain limitations. They could thus distribute approaches to innovation which responds in creative ways to resource constraints. That has resonance already — when I and my co-authors wrote our books on frugal innovation, we found they were almost immediately translated into Portuguese for Brazil, Mandarin for China, Russian for Russia and French for Francophone countries in Africa. The BRICS Sumit could thus grow a frugal innovation network that links universities, startups, development banks, research labs, space centres and other platforms that bring these nations closer together by producing practical solutions.
