Environmental Performance Index
The Environmental Performance Index (EPI) is a method of quantifying and numerically marking the environmental performance of a state's policies, highlightning the degradation of the planet's life-supporting systems on which humanity depends. A world economy that continues to rely heavily on fossil fuels translates into ongoing air and water pollution, acidification of the oceans, and rising concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. These changes threaten the survival of species already suffering from widespread habitat loss, pushing them closer to extinction. Recent analyses show that humanity has already transgressed six out of nine critical planetary boundaries that define Earth's safe operating space — and is close to crossing a seventh. The Environmental Performance Index (EPI) was started in 2002 by World Economic Forum in association with the Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy (Yale University) and Center for International Earth Science Information Network Earth Institute (Columbia University). The biennial EPI report harnesses the latest data sets, science, and technology to provide the most comprehensive assessment of the state of sustainability around the world. In total, the 2024 EPI report incorporates 58 indicators to rank 180 countries on their progress at mitigating climate change, safeguarding ecosystem vitality, and promoting environmental health. This broad set of metrics is a powerful tool to track progress towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals, the climate mitigation targets in the 2015 Paris Climate Change Agreement, and the biodiversity protection goals in the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.[2] In 2023, the first global assessment of progress toward the goals of the Paris Agreement revealed a grim picture: the world is far off track. Despite record deployment of renewable energy, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions keep rising. As the world enters uncharted climatic territory, there is a heightened risk of crossing irreversible tipping points in the planet's climate system.[2]
Methodology
Over time, the methodology for the EPI has been criticized for its arbitrary choice of metrics which could introduce bias, and its poor performance as an indicator for environmental sustainability.[3] Additional criticisms center on the EPI's lack of specific policy suggestions, and the index's weighting biases against data deficient countries that has led to the overlooking of ecological progress in developing countries.[3] In 2024, India was ranked at 176 in the list and rejected the low ranking. As per a statement issued by the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEF&CC), it claimed that several indicators used in the calculation were based on unfounded assumptions and unscientific methods.[4][5][6] The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe found 3 Pros: EPI provides an easily comparable index; EPI's ecosystem vitality scores are based on six constituent policy categories: water resources, agriculture, forests, fisheries, biodiversity and habitat, and climate and energy; the referenced database yields maps for each of EPI's partial indices (normalised to 0 … 100) and 3 Cons: CIESIN's EPI rather is an attempt to quantitatively represent the ecological performance of countries and companies; actual reasons for dysfunctionalities might need further research; EPI would be a more policy-relevant index.[7] As a result of these criticisms, the number of EPI indicators has increased, and their weight has changed, to provide a better data-driven summary of the state of sustainability around the world. The 2024 index is based on 58 performance indicators grouped into 30 issue categories with an objective of environmental health, ecosystem vitality and climate change, ranking 180 countries.[8]
| Policy Objective | Wt. (%) | Issue Category | Wt. (%) | Indicator | Wt. (%) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ecosystem Vitality | 45% | Biodiversity & Habitat | 25 | Marine KBA Protection | 12.0 |
| Marine Habitat Protection | 12.0 | ||||
| Marine Protection Stringency | 2.0 | ||||
| Protected Areas Representativeness Index | 12.0 | ||||
| Species Protection Index | 16.0 | ||||
| Terrestrial Biome Protection | 10.0 | ||||
| Terrestrial KBA Protection | 10.0 | ||||
| Protected Area Effectiveness | 2.0 | ||||
| Protected Human Land | 2.0 | ||||
| Red List Index | 12.0 | ||||
| Species Habitat Index | 8.0 | ||||
| Bioclimatic Ecosystem Resilience | 2.0 | ||||
| Forests | 5 | Primary Forest Loss | 30.0 | ||
| Intact Forest Landscape Loss | 30.0 | ||||
| Tree cover loss weighted by permanency | 25.0 | ||||
| Net change in tree cover | 10.0 | ||||
| Forest Landscape Integrity | 5.0 | ||||
| Fisheries | 2 | Fish Stock Status | 15.0 | ||
| Fish Catch Discarded | 20.0 | ||||
| Bottom Trawling in EEZ | 25.0 | ||||
| Bottom Trawling in Global Ocean | 35.0 | ||||
| Regional Marine Trophic Index | 5.0 | ||||
| Air Pollution | 6 | Ozone exposure KBAs | 8.3 | ||
| Ozone exposure croplands | 8.3 | ||||
| Adj. emissions growth rate for nitrous oxides | 41.7 | ||||
| Adj. emissions growth rate for sulfur dioxide | 41.7 | ||||
| Agriculture | 3 | Sustainable Nitrogen Management Index | 40.0 | ||
| Phosphorus Surplus | 3.3 | ||||
| Pesticide Pollution Risk | 16.7 | ||||
| Relative Crop Yield | 40.0 | ||||
| Water Resources | 5 | Wastewater generated | 10.0 | ||
| Wastewater collected | 40.0 | ||||
| Wastewater treated | 40.0 | ||||
| Wastewater reused | 10.0 | ||||
| Environmental Health | 25% | Air Quality | 17 | Anthropogenic PM2.5 exposure | 38.2 |
| Household solid fuels | 38.2 | ||||
| Ozone exposure | 8.8 | ||||
| NOx exposure | 5.9 | ||||
| SO2 exposure | 2.9 | ||||
| CO exposure | 2.9 | ||||
| VOC exposure | 2.9 | ||||
| Sanitation & Drinking Water | 5 | Unsafe sanitation | 40.0 | ||
| Unsafe drinking water | 60.0 | ||||
| Heavy Metals | 2 | Lead exposure | 100.0 | ||
| Waste Management | 1 | Waste generated per capita | 40.0 | ||
| Controlled solid waste | 20.0 | ||||
| Waste recovery rate | 40.0 | ||||
| Climate Change | 30% | Climate Change Mitigation | 30 | Adjusted emissions growth rate for carbon dioxide | 25.0 |
| CO2 growth rate (country- specific targets) | 1.7 | ||||
| Adjusted emissions growth rate for methane | 10.0 | ||||
| Adjusted emissions growth rate for F-gases | 6.7 | ||||
| Adjusted emissions growth rate for nitrous oxide | 3.3 | ||||
| Adjusted emissions growth rate for black carbon | 5.0 | ||||
| Net carbon fluxes due to land cover change | 3.3 | ||||
| GHG growth rate adjusted by emissions intensity | 20.0 | ||||
| GHG growth rate adjusted by per capita emissions | 20.0 | ||||
| Projected emissions in 2050 | 3.3 | ||||
| Projected cumulative emissions to 2050 relative to carbon budget | 1.7 | ||||
List of countries by 2024 EPI scores
The 2024 Environmental Performance Index report ranks 180 countries and territories, based on 58 performance indicators grouped into 30 issue categories. The top five countries are Estonia, Luxembourg, Germany, Finland and the United Kingdom, while the last ones are India, Myanmar, Laos, Pakistan and Vietnam.[9] Sorting is alphabetical by country code, according to ISO 3166-1 alpha-3.
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EPI scores vs. GDP per capita, 2024
Countries’ wealth is a strong predictor of their overall environmental performance, but some countries vastly outperform their economic peers, while others lag.
EPI scores are positively correlated with a country's wealth, although after a point, increasing wealth yields diminishing. returns. At every level of economic development, though, some countries outperform their peers while others lag. Some of the poorest countries in the world outperform some of the richest. In this regard, factors other than wealth, such as investments in human development, rule of law, and regulatory quality, are stronger predictors of environmental performance.[10] Wealth allows countries to make investments in the infrastructure required to provide clean drinking water, safely manage waste, and rapidly expand renewable energy. But wealth also leads to higher material consumption and its associated environmental impacts, such as higher rates of waste generation, GHG emissions, and ecosystem degradation. Many countries with high scores in some Ecosystem Vitality metrics — such as those measuring the pollution from pesticides and fertilizers in agriculture, the integrity of forest landscapes, and the use of destructive fishing methods — do so because their economies are stagnant and underdeveloped.[9] Developing countries must be careful not to repeat the mistakes of nations that followed a dirty and unsustainable path to industrialization. On the other hand, rich countries need to decouple their consumption from environmental degradation and use their wealth to help developing countries leapfrog to a path of truly sustainable development, preserving their biodiversity and other global commons for the benefit of all humankind.[1][9][10]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Block, S.; Emerson, J.W.; Esty, D.C.; de Sherbinin, A.; Wendling, Z.A.; et al. (2024-10-03). "2024 Environmental Performance Index. Technical Appendix" (PDF). epi.yale.edu. New Haven, CT: Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy. Retrieved 2024-10-24.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 "2024 Environmental Performance Index". epi.yale.edu. New Haven, CT: Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy & Center for International Earth Science Information Network Earth Institute, Columbia University. 2024-10-03. Retrieved 2024-10-24.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link) - ↑ 3.0 3.1 Kanmani, Aiyshwariya; Obringer, Renee; Rachunok, Benjamin; Nateghi, Roshanak (2020-01-11). "Assessing Global Environmental Sustainability Via an Unsupervised Clustering Framework". Sustainability. 12 (2): 563. doi:10.3390/su12020563. Retrieved 2024-10-24.
- ↑ Banerjee, Ankush. "What Happened to Green India? Ranked Lowest as per Environmental Performance Index, India Disputes Methodology". Business Insider. Retrieved 2024-10-24.
- ↑ "India's lagging sustainability performance". Hindustan Times. 2022-06-27. Retrieved 2024-10-24.
- ↑ Roy, Esha (2022-06-11). "Explained: What is the environment index, and why has India questioned it?". The Indian Express. Retrieved 2024-10-24.
- ↑ "Environmental performance index EPI. Pros & Cons". unece.org. United Nations Economic Commission for Europe. Retrieved 2024-10-24.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 "2024 Weights" (CSV). epi.yale.edu. New Haven, CT: Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy. Retrieved 2024-10-24.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 Block, S.; Emerson, J.W.; Esty, D.C.; de Sherbinin, A.; Wendling, Z.A.; et al. (2024-10-03). "2024 Environmental Performance Index" (PDF). epi.yale.edu. New Haven, CT: Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy. Retrieved 2024-10-24.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ↑ 10.0 10.1 "2024 Environmental Performance Index. Policymakers' Summary". epi.yale.edu. New Haven, CT: Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy & Center for International Earth Science Information Network Earth Institute, Columbia University. 2024-10-03. Retrieved 2024-10-24.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
See also
External links
- The Environmental Performance Index - interactive map
- The Environmental Performance Index – Center for Environmental Law & Policy