By: Piyush Verma
This article originally appeared in the World Economic Forum on August 18, 2025.
In a world increasingly fractured by geopolitical competition and economic uncertainty, climate action demands new alliances – ones that transcend traditional North-South hierarchies and foster equitable collaboration.
The emerging IBSA+Indonesia platform, uniting India, Brazil, South Africa and Indonesia, represents exactly that: a Global South-led, democratic and pluralistic coalition that can reshape the contours of global energy transition and climate cooperation.
While IBSA (India-Brazil-South Africa) has existed over two decades as a trilateral dialogue on development, the inclusion of Indonesia – a G20 member, ASEAN leader and archipelagic powerhouse – elevates its relevance in the 21st-century transition landscape.
At a time when multilateralism is under significant stress and global climate finance remains skewed and inequitably distributed, IBSA+Indonesia offers a fresh model of geopolitical collaboration on energy and climate – anchored in shared values and driven by practical action.
IBSA+Indonesia as a unique quartet of emerging democracies
IBSA+Indonesia collectively represents nearly 2.5 billion people – roughly a quarter of the world’s population – alongside over $7 trillion in global gross domestic product, 12% of worldwide emissions and a geographically diverse footprint across the Global South. What makes this grouping uniquely powerful is not just its scale, but the distinct and complementary strengths each country brings to the table.
India recently crossed a major milestone, with 50% of its installed electricity capacity now from non-fossil sources – five years ahead of its 2030 Paris Agreement target. Renewables account for around 185 GW, including nearly 28 GW added in 2024.
Brazil continues to lead globally, generating 88% of its electricity from renewables – mainly hydropower, with wind and solar now contributing 24%.
Meanwhile, South Africa, long reliant on coal, is advancing its Just Energy Transition Investment Plan, supported by $12.8 billion in international finance – even after the U.S. withdrawal – to drive coal phase-down, upgrade the grid and promote inclusive industrial transformation.
Indonesia, a top producer of nickel and other critical minerals, is becoming central to the clean tech supply chain, alongside growing geothermal investments.
This diversity of experience and resource endowment is a strategic advantage. The group’s mix of energy systems, governance models and industrial priorities creates fertile ground for peer learning, collaborative technology development and the building of resilient, integrated supply chains.
The case for South-South Leadership
The global energy transition cannot – and should not – be one-size-fits-all. The needs of countries in the Global South are distinct, shaped by rising electricity demand, industrialization imperatives, climate vulnerability and the pursuit of inclusive development.
Yet, dominant models of climate finance and technology cooperation – though intended to support developing economies – are still shaped by the priorities and mechanisms of the Global North. As a result, funding structures and technology partnerships often fail to align with the developmental needs, economic realities and institutional capacities of emerging economies, missing the opportunity to foster context-specific solutions and build local capabilities.
Consider this: the African continent attracts less than 5% of global energy investment, despite its vast renewable potential. Middle-income countries like Brazil and Indonesia often fall into a financial blind spot – too advanced to qualify for concessional finance, yet still perceived as too risky for large-scale private investment.
Indonesia’s Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP), once seen as a flagship effort, is now widely viewed as stalled or falling short of expectations. This structural imbalance continues to constrain ambition and delay implementation across much of the Global South.
IBSA+Indonesia offers a path to correct this imbalance – not by replicating northern models, but by co-creating solutions tailored to the realities of the Global South. Together, these efforts offer the foundation for a southern-led repository of transition models – context-specific, demand-driven and scalable across other emerging economies.
The power of IBSA+Indonesia lies not just in what each country has achieved individually, but in what they can accomplish collectively: reframing climate action as a story of co-investment, co-innovation and shared leadership in a multipolar world.
Beyond shared needs, the quartet holds strategic assets critical to global clean energy supply chains. Brazil and Indonesia are bioenergy and critical mineral giants, while South Africa and India have emerging green hydrogen and battery ambitions. All four are actively investing in solar, wind and storage manufacturing.
Together, they can create a distributed, resilient clean technology manufacturing and trade corridor, reducing dependency on single-country suppliers and mitigating supply chain shocks. With coordinated industrial policy, preferential trade agreements and joint R&D platforms, IBSA+Indonesia can become a counterweight to both China-centric and Western-centric clean technology ecosystems.
Already, India and Brazil have initiated cooperation on ethanol technology. Indonesia and India are exploring battery value chains. South Africa and Brazil are both investing in green ammonia for maritime export. These are early signs of horizontal partnerships – built not on aid, but on mutual value creation.
IBSA+Indonesia can be collective voice in global governance
Perhaps the most underappreciated strength of IBSA+Indonesia lies in its ability to shape global norms. Each country sits at the intersection of key platforms – G20, BRICS, ASEAN, African Union and others – giving the grouping a unique vantage point to amplify the concerns of the Global South.
Together, they can push for reforms in global climate finance architecture to improve access and equity, advocate for fairer carbon border and trade measures that protect developmental space, and champion more inclusive technology transfer and IP frameworks.
In an era of fragmented multilateralism, a coordinated IBSA+Indonesia voice could help steer global negotiations toward greater fairness and effectiveness. But this coalition can go beyond coordination. Its real potential lies in co-creation – building joint regional project pipelines to attract blended finance, developing common standards for EVs and renewables, launching shared training programmes to grow the green workforce, and investing in co-innovation platforms for batteries, carbon capture or AI-driven energy systems. This is not just about shared diplomacy – it’s about shared delivery.
We are at a moment of rare geopolitical alignment. The urgency of climate action, coupled with growing fragmentation in global governance, makes this a strategic window for IBSA+Indonesia to assert its energy and climate leadership globally.
As advanced economies grapple with domestic fatigue on climate spending and developing nations demand a fairer deal, this coalition is uniquely positioned to act as a bridge – linking ambition with equity, and global goals with local realities. By aligning strategies, scaling solutions and speaking with one voice, these emerging democracies can drive a more just, resilient and multipolar energy future.
This is not a moment to follow – it is a moment to lead. And IBSA+Indonesia must seize this opportunity to lead from the front, together.
Piyush Verma is Senior Fellow for the Energy & Climate program at ORF America.