Environment Performance Index

Why in the News?

Recently, the World Economic Forum in collaboration with the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy and the Columbia University Center for International Earth Science Information Network has released the Environment Performance Index-2022.

Key Points:

About Environment Performance Index:

• It is an international ranking system that measures environmental health and sustainability of countries

• The EPI, a biennial index, was started in 2002 as an Environmental Sustainability Index by the World Economic Forum in collaboration with the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy and the Columbia University Center for International Earth Science Information Network

• It uses 40 performance indicators across 11 issue categories

• EPI ranks 180 countries on climate change performance, environmental health, and ecosystem vitality

• These indicators provide a gauge at a national scale of how close countries are to established environmental policy targets

• India’s Performance:

  • India has been ranked last among 180 countries that have been ranked

  • With a  score of 18.9, India’s 180th ranking comes after Pakistan, Bangladesh, Vietnam and Myanmar — the bottom five together make up the poorest performing countries for environmental health

  • India has also scored low on rule of law, control of corruption and government effectiveness

  • India was ranked 168th in EPI-2020, with a score of 27.6

• Global Performance: 

  • Denmark holds the top rank emerging as the most sustainable country in 2022

  • The United States is lagging behind its peers of wealthy nations. It ranked 43 out of 180 countries in the index

  • As per EPI estimates, only a handful of countries, including Denmark and the United Kingdom, are on track to meet net zero-emission goals by 2050

  • Nations such as China, India, and Russia are headed towards the wrong direction with rapidly rising greenhouse gas emissions

  • The EPI projections indicate that four countries — China, India, the United States, and Russia — will account for over 50% of residual global greenhouse gas emissions in 2050 if the current trends hold

Suggestions: 

• The report suggests that the economic prosperity of a country makes investing in policies on the environment possible leading to desirable income

• It further states that building necessary infrastructure can at large provide other environmental benefits like clean drinking water and sanitation, reduce ambient air pollution, and control hazardous waste