John Feffer, the Director of Foreign Policy in Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies, wrote in an opinion piece at Tom Dispatch that the BRICS alliance is a “multopolarism of fools”. He highlighted the hypocrisy of the bloc where they give speeches about conserving the environment, but later on, go to their respective countries and begin selling fossil fuels.
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BRICS Says One Thing But Does the Other: Analyst
During the 2025 summit in Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro, BRICS extensively discussed climate change and the need to combat the issue. While the discussions are good, their actions are not. For the uninitiated, all BRICS countries are sellers of fossil fuels to varying degrees. A part of their economy depends on the sale, and their GDP takes a hit.
Out of the 10-member alliance, 9 BRICS countries blatantly sell fossil fuels. Only Ethiopia does not sell fossil fuel, as it does not have a domestic industry. Fossil fuels are bad for the environment as the combustion releases greenhouse gases that cause climate change, affecting the water and air that we naturally breathe.
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In addition, Feffer explained that BRICS members talk about excessive US authoritarianism, but many of the alliance members themselves run authoritarian regimes and suppress freedom of speech. Countries such as China, Russia, and Iran, among others, impose the same level of authoritarianism (or even worse) on their people, but blame the US for its shortcomings.
The cards don’t deck up, and their words don’t justify their actions. This makes all talks meaningless as their leaders build castles in the sand at summits. He called out the BRICS alliance “masquerading as a geopolitical counterbalance,” while the reality is different.
“As a bloc of mostly authoritarian, eco-unfriendly, and socio-economically conservative countries masquerading as a geopolitical counterbalance, the BRICS represent the ‘multipolarism of fools’. The ends do not justify the BRICS,” he wrote.