China and U.S. plunge in latest Environmental Index – Iceland scores top
geothermal energy plant in Iceland – photo by futureatlas.com (source: Flickr Creative Commons)
The 2010 Environmental Performance Index or EPI – a biennial study by Yale and Colombia Universities – ranks 163 countries on the basis of ten policy categories including ‘environmental health, air quality, water resource management, biodiversity and habitat, forestry, fisheries, agriculture, and climate change.’ This year’s EPI shows some interesting results:
Iceland rocketed to number one from an already laudable 11th place in 2008. Maybe having a huge financial crisis is good for the environment, as has been argued in terms of global greenhouse gas emission levels, which fell as the price of oil climbed. However, in Iceland’s case, though the recession may have helped the Nordic nation into first place, its geothermal energy and hydroelectric power solidified its previous high ranking.
The top 5 countries of Yale’s 2010 EPI are rounded out by Switzerland (2), Costa Rica (3), Sweden (4) and Norway (5). New Zealand clocked in at number 15 (moving down 8 places) and Japan at 20 (moving up one). Most Asian nations fell in the middle or lower half of the Index, while several Latin American and European nations made good showings.
Recent efforts by China or the Obama administration in the U.S. are not represented in the rankings because the data is not up to date enough to reflect them according to an article in the New York Times. Inaccurate data supplied by the countries themselves may also skew the EPI’s results, as do radically different methodologies used to measure air pollution in China for example, which do not jive with accepted western models. Environmental statistics are notoriously tricky, but important if we are to make measured progress.
“Countries that take seriously the environment as a policy challenge do improve, and those that don’t deteriorate,” said Daniel C. Esty, director of the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy, who oversees the index project. “Both the U.S. and China are suffering because they’re industrial and haven’t been paying much attention to environmental policy.”
–New York Times
Other comparable ranking systems like the New Economics Foundation’s Happy Planet Index emphasize different factors. The HPI combines countries’ environmental impacts with their population’s ‘reported life satisfaction’ and ranks them accordingly.
by Graham Land
Additional resources:
What’s the Greenest country in the world?
Graham Land grew up in Washington, D.C., where he was part of the local hardcore punk scene. Through this unique musical movement he became involved in grass roots anti-racist activism, animal rights and Ecology. Since 2000 Graham has lived in Europe, earning an MA in history from Malmö University in Sweden and working as a musician, English teacher, sports therapist, customer service agent and writer. Graham has a podcast with author Saci Lloyd and is currently pretending to work on his first novel.
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Tags: China, energy, environmental, EPI, geothermal, Iceland, index, policy, rank, ranking, U.S., Yale
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