Can a country accelerate its energy transition and still add fossil-fuel capacity?
In many emerging economies, that is already part of the policy reality.
Electricity demand is rising and industries are expanding. New consumers need reliable power. Renewable capacity is being added at scale, while transmission, storage and other supporting infrastructure have to keep pace.
The global energy transition is therefore becoming a question of how entire energy systems evolve, rather than simply which generation sources replace which.
The 18th BRICS Summit in New Delhi brought this into sharp focus. The New Delhi Declaration reaffirmed climate action and the Paris Agreement, while recognising the continuing role of fossil fuels, particularly for emerging and developing economies. It also emphasised technological neutrality, national circumstances, and priorities, and the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities (CBDR-RC).
The world may need one climate expectation, but it may not need one energy model.
One climate goal, different energy realities
Every country is expected to contribute to climate action. The form that contribution takes will depend on the conditions in which its energy economy operates.
A country with rapidly rising electricity demand, limited fiscal space, domestic coal resources, and a large industrial base faces a different set of choices from one with lower demand, stronger access to capital, and established renewable infrastructure.
The BRICS grouping itself demonstrates this variation. Its members have different resource endowments, demand profiles, grids, industrial capabilities, and development priorities.
CBDR-RC has a practical implication here. Countries share responsibility for addressing climate change, while their capabilities, historical circumstances, and development needs differ.
The useful measure is therefore progress against a common objective, assessed alongside the conditions in which each economy operates.
Renewables need a stronger system around them
Solar and wind will remain central to the transition. Their expansion also places new demands on the rest of the power sector.
More variable generation requires transmission capacity, storage, forecasting, flexible resources, stronger distribution networks, and better grid management. Digital tools and advanced analytics can improve planning, renewable integration, and operational efficiency.
The BRICS Declaration brings these issues together. It welcomes Guiding Principles on Smart Grids and Energy Storage and supports the establishment of a BRICS Digital Centre of Excellence for Smart Grids and Energy Storage.
It also calls for cooperation on hydrogen value chains and interoperable standards and certification frameworks for zero- and low-emission hydrogen.
Together these priorities show BRICS treating the transition as an energy-system and market-building exercise.
Adding renewable generation at scale also means building the grid, storage, digital capability, and market arrangements that allow that generation to deliver reliable power.
The transition has to be judged through system capability as well as installed capacity.
Energy security runs through the value chain
The Delhi Declaration places energy security alongside energy transition and links it to diversified energy sources, resilient supply chains, and protection of critical energy infrastructure. It also recognises the continuing role of fossil fuels, particularly in emerging and developing economies.
That concern extends beyond fuel supply. Solar modules, batteries, electrolysers, transmission equipment, and other clean-energy technologies depend on minerals, manufacturing capacity, transport networks, and technology supply chains.
The Declaration calls for reliable, diversified, and resilient critical-mineral supply chains, along with greater value addition and economic diversification in resource-rich countries.
A country can have excellent renewable resources and still remain exposed if it depends heavily on imported equipment, concentrated mineral supply chains or technologies over which it has limited control.
Energy security therefore increasingly involves the resilience of the infrastructure and inputs required to produce and deliver energy.
Capital will shape the pace
The speed of energy-system change also depends on the cost and availability of finance.
A renewable project can have strong technical fundamentals and still struggle to compete if its financing costs are high. The same applies to transmission, storage, grid modernisation, and other infrastructure required to integrate new generation.
The BRICS Declaration acknowledges financing gaps facing emerging and developing economies, and supports work on making climate projects more bankable. It also notes the potential of BRICS Multilateral Guarantees to improve creditworthiness, reduce financing costs, and mobilise private capital.
Two countries can have similar climate ambitions and very different investment outcomes because the cost of capital, availability of guarantees, and depth of domestic financial markets differ.
A target can express ambition, but the cost of capital usually determines what gets built.
Technology needs market rules
Engineering capability alone does not determine whether a new energy technology scales.
Hydrogen needs standards and certification that allow markets to recognise what is being produced and traded. Storage needs market rules that define the services it provides and how those services are valued. Smart-grid technologies need interoperability and regulatory frameworks that allow them to operate across systems.
The BRICS agenda is moving into these areas through work on hydrogen standards, smart grids, storage and standardisation.
The Declaration also records discussion on strengthening cooperation on fair competition, including in renewable energy markets.
As clean-energy markets grow, competition policy will influence market access, concentration, investment incentives, and the development of domestic industries.
Technology policy and market regulation will have to develop together.
The transition is also an industrial strategy
Clean-energy investment is creating new manufacturing markets and changing the competitive position of existing industries.
Solar modules, batteries, electrolysers, power electronics, grid equipment, and critical minerals are becoming strategic economic assets. Countries want access to these technologies while also seeking domestic manufacturing, employment, and greater control over supply chains.
The BRICS Declaration links energy cooperation with technology transfer, productive capacity, manufacturing, and market access.
Its position on trade reflects this concern. The Declaration raises objections to unilateral measures it considers discriminatory or protectionist, including carbon border measures.
Meanwhile, BRICS members are building cooperation around carbon markets and climate strategies through the BRICS Carbon Markets Partnership.
These developments connect climate policy with competitiveness.
A country’s transition choices can affect the cost of industrial production, access to export markets, technology imports and domestic manufacturing opportunities.
Energy policy is therefore becoming part of industrial and trade policy.
What gets measured gets noticed
Installed renewable capacity is easy to count. But the value of a stronger transmission network, a flexible grid, a domestic battery supply chain, or a credible hydrogen certification framework is harder to capture in a single headline number.
Still these capabilities can determine whether renewable capacity is integrated efficiently and whether new technologies can scale.
If transition progress is presented mainly through generation capacity, investment in grids, storage, manufacturing, minerals, digital systems and market reform can disappear from the story, even when those investments determine how well the electricity sector performs.
The way transition is framed influences which investments and capabilities receive attention.
That can shape how governments, investors, and businesses assess priorities and strategic value.
So, does the world need one energy-transition model?
A common climate objective is essential. But a common template for every energy system is harder to justify.
Countries need to reduce emissions and expand cleaner energy while maintaining reliable electricity, affordable energy, economic growth and resilient supply chains. The balance will vary according to domestic conditions.
The BRICS Delhi Declaration offers a useful picture of how that reality is being recognised. Its energy agenda brings together energy security, technological neutrality, renewable energy, fossil fuels, smart grids, storage, hydrogen, critical minerals, financing, manufacturing, standards and competition.
The combination is significant. BRICS is discussing the transition through the full chain of energy production, infrastructure, markets, technology, finance and industrial capacity.
The objective can be shared without making every country’s energy system look the same.
The more useful ambition is to give countries the capacity to make their own systems cleaner, more secure, more resilient and capable of supporting economic growth.
The world may need one climate ambition. It may not need one energy model.
Should countries be judged by a common energy-transition template, or by the progress they make within their own circumstances?
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