Ethics Newsline®

From Yale University and the Earth Institute at Columbia University:

“New Zealand ranks first in the world in environmental performance, according to the new 2006 Environmental Performance Index (EPI) produced by a team of environmental experts at the environment school at Yale University and the Earth Institute at Columbia University.

“The 2006 EPI, to be released in Davos, Switzerland, at the World Economic Forum on January 26, ranks Sweden, Finland, Czech Republic, and the United Kingdom two to five respectively. The top-ranked countries all commit significant resources and effort to environmental protection, resulting in strong performance across most of the policy categories.

“The EPI identifies targets for environmental performance and measures how close each country comes to these goals. It ranks 133 countries on 16 indicators tracked in six established policy categories: Environmental Health, Air Quality, Water Resources, Biodiversity and Habitat, Productive Natural Resources, and Sustainable Energy. As a quantitative gauge of pollution control and natural resource management results, the Index provides a powerful tool for improving policymaking and shifting environmental decisionmaking onto firmer analytic foundations.

“The Index provides ‘peer group’ rankings for each country showing how its performance stacks up against others facing similar environmental challenges. These benchmarks allow easy tracking of leaders and laggards on an issue-by-issue and aggregate basis. The data also supports effort to identify ‘best practices’ in the environmental realm.

“The lowest-ranked countries — Ethiopia, Mali, Mauritania, Chad and Niger — are underdeveloped nations with little capacity to invest in environmental infrastructure (such as drinking water and sanitation systems) and weak regulatory systems.

“The 2006 EPI generates a number of policy conclusions. A country’s wealth emerges as a significant determinant of environmental outcomes. But at every level of development, some countries achieve environmental results that far exceed their peers, demonstrating that policy choices also affect performance. For example, the Dominican Republic (54) significantly outperforms Haiti (114) even though the countries share an island. Likewise, Sweden (2) produces much better environmental results than Belgium (39).

“The Environmental Performance Index reveals that effective policymaking is critical to successful pollution control and sound natural resource management. ‘Policy choices matter,’ said Daniel C. Esty, Director of the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy and Hillhouse Professor of Environmental Law and Policy. ‘Good governance emerges as a critical driver of environmental performance.’

“The Index reveals that nations at all levels of economic development face serious environmental challenges. Industrialized countries often suffer from pollution and degraded ecosystems. Developing countries must confront the additional challenge of managing environmental health stresses such as water-borne diseases and indoor air pollution.

“The United States placed 28th in the rankings — significantly below other highly-developed nations like the United Kingdom (5) and Canada (8). This score reflects top-tier performance on environmental health issues, but also indicates that the United States is under-performing on critical issues such as renewable energy, greenhouse gas emissions, and water resources….”