Environmental researchers at Yale and Columbia Universities released the 2010 Environmental Performance Index (EPI) at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland last month. Iceland came in first, while the U.S. trailed behind at a distant 61st, dropping from 39th in 2008.
This was the third edition of the EPI that ranks 163 nations based on a variety of environmental performance indicators. Categories include: environmental health, air quality, water resource management, biodiversity and habitat, forestry, fisheries, agriculture, and climate change.
Iceland, which derives most of its power from geothermal energy and hydropower, got high marks on environmental, public health, controlling greenhouse gas emissions, and reforestation projects. Other countries near the top of the list include Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Costa Rica.
Quoted in an article in the New York Times, Daniel C. Esty, director of the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy, who oversees the EPI, said, “Countries that take seriously the environment as a policy challenge do improve, those that don't deteriorate.” The high-scoring countries have all made substantial improvements in environmental infrastructure, pollution control, and policies developed to more toward long-term sustainability. Costa Rica has been especially active in conserving its rain forest.
While the United States' overall performance slipped, the country did score well on some issues such as forest sustainability and provision of safe drinking water. The weakest performance was on greenhouse gas emissions and air pollutants such as sulfur dioxide.
China and India, however, ranked even lower, at 121st and 123rd, respectively. But researchers stress that these new rankings cannot be compared exactly to the 2008 EPI as scientists have changed their methodology. Also, much of the data is culled from 2007 and 2008, so the index does not show the Obama administration's or China's government's efforts to better environmental performance.
Another issue is that many of the countries offer data provided by international groups such as the World Bank, the United Nations, and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). But serious data gaps exist in the way different countries report information. At the Copenhagen Climate Conference last December the importance of a reliable system to measure, track, verify, and report accurate environmental performance emerged as a critical issue, and one that will be discussed again next November in Mexico City.
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