You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
In case you've been too busy to notice, BRIC-bat has a whole new meaning too. The BBC laid out the biggest COP15 backstory last June:
The world's newest economic grouping has ended its first major summit by calling for a more diversified international monetary system. But the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India and China stopped short of criticising the world's dominant currency, the US dollar.....
"The summit must create the conditions for a fairer world order," they said in their final statement. The leaders of the four countries said they were "committed to advance the reform of international financial institutions, so as to reflect changes in the world economy. "The emerging and developing economies must have a greater voice and representation in international financial institutions."
This is not your Daddy's Fairness Doctrine either, this is your Distributive Justice Doctrine, more accurately described as redistributive blackmail -- now playing at the COP15 theatre. QB suggests that it's time to revisit the definition of "emerging economies" and "developing countries."
China is now the world's third-biggest economy, while Russia, India and Brazil are catching up with many key European economies.
What's developing is a new international steamroller of alliances, in somewhat uneasy, shifting iterations for now, but rapidly coalescing as shared interests and opportunities are identified. Forget the Academic/Green/Science coalition, and look at the BASIC plan laid out for COP15:
Four of the world’s major developing countries on Saturday agreed on a substantive draft declaration listing their “non-negotiable” demands ahead of next month’s climate summit in Copenhagen.
The 10-page draft, which has been signed by China, India, Brazil and South Africa, is being conceived as a counter to the text that will be released by western countries next week as a possible basis for negotiations, when talks begin on December 7....
Particularly, it underscored what were, for India and other developing nations, four “non-negotiables”: The countries would never accept legally binding emissions cuts, unsupported mitigation actions, international measurement, reporting and verification of unsupported mitigation actions, and the use of climate change as a trade barrier.
The protagonists in the new Cold War will not be the haves and the have nots. It will be haves vs. haves & everybody else. The alarm with which we used to view the prospect of a Sino-Soviet bloc may have moderated, but their expansionist dreams remain intact. QB suggests that both political and economic rapprochement, on an even larger, more complex, scale, demand our close attention now.
There is no status quo to maintain or foster with China (note NKorea in its sphere), whose appetite for oil is unconstrained by the slightest concern for human rights, and Russia (note Iran), whose mafioso outreach extends to Latin America where it feeds Chavist ambitions -- which Brazil appears to regard with a certain equanimity. India may still be skittish, but the U.S. is not the only country inclined to seek influence through engagement. Alas, we may be adding that special relationship, so assiduously cultivated by the last administration, to an ever growing list of partnerships which Obama, himself, has destabilized since January.
The world is busy rearranging itself, while we vote present. We don't think global climate change means what the President thinks it means.