India ranked lowest in the world in Environmental Performance Index
By Anushtup Haldar
With a score of only 18.9, India has been ranked the lowest in the 2022 edition of the prestigious Environmental Performance Index (EPI), brought out by Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy. The analysis was done by researchers at the Earth Institute of Yale University and Columbia University.
The index ranks countries on 40 performance indicators across 11 categories related to climate change, environmental health and ecosystem vitality. The last rank, which is 180, means that India performs very poorly on policy implementation. Laws there are enough but without implementation, they are useless.
The last rank also means that all of India’s neighbours—Afghanistan, Bhutan, Maldives, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh—rank higher. Though Pakistan and Bangladesh score very poorly as well, with ranks of 176 and 177, respectively.
A statement by the EPI team said that India, along with Vietnam, Pakistan and Bangladesh, has prioritised economic growth over environmental sustainability. Clearly an unenviable position to be in.
“The lowest scores overall go to countries that are struggling with civil unrest or other crises, including Myanmar and Haiti, or nations that have prioritized economic growth over environmental sustainability, such as India, Vietnam, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. With markedly poor air quality and quickly rising greenhouse gas emissions, India, for the first time, comes in at the very bottom of country rankings. Poor air quality and rising GHG emissions continue to impact China’s EPI ranking, with the nation placing 160th out of 180 countries on the 2022 scorecard,” read the EPI statement.
Just a handful of countries, including Denmark and the UK, are on track to reach net zero emissions by 2050, according to EPI projections. Those are the top two, as per the 2022 EPI, followed by Finland, Malta, Sweden, Luxembourg, Slovenia, Austria, Switzerland and Iceland.
The 2022 Index puts USA at a lowly 43, “behind most wealthy western democracies, including France (12th), Germany (13th), Australia (17th), Italy (23rd), and Japan (25th)”, as per the EPI statement.
