India at bottom of EPI 2022, Ministry rebuts index

NEW DELHI: The Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy and the Center for International Earth Science Information Network, Columbia University published the Environment Performance Index 2022, assessing the environment health of 180 countries. India ranked in the bottom five with a score of 18.9. In 2020, India had ranked 168 out of 180 countries. In the index this year, India scored poorly on various measures such as control of corruption, rule of law, and government effectiveness.

The EPI ranks countries on 40 performance indicators including biodiversity, environmental public health, climate change, etc. Each country’s performance is viewed across 11 categories including biodiversity and habitat, ecosystem vitality, ecosystem services, grassland loss, among others. Denmark ranked first in the categories of sustainability and environmental health. The United States of America has been placed at the 43^rd rank out of 180 countries in the index, and at 20^th rank from among the 22 wealthy democracies of the global west.

The conclusions of the EPI suggest that efficient policy results are directly associated with GDP per capita – economic prosperity makes it possible for countries to invest in policies and programmes that can create desirable outcomes. It stated that building necessary infrastructure can provide other environmental benefits like clean drinking water and sanitation, reduce ambient air pollution, and help control hazardous waste. The Report noted that countries that were focusing on various sustainability measures have performed better than their lagging counterparts.

The EPI said that nations in general have been able to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, which has the greatest gains in curbing climate change. It added that these efforts have positive effects on human health and ecosystems. The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Government of India, rebutted the index and said that some of the indicators used in the EPI are extrapolated and are based on surmises and unscientific methods. The Ministry said that the weight of the indicators in which India performed well has been reduced and that the reasons for such change have not been explained in the report. As an example, the Ministry quoted that for black carbon growth rate indicator, India’s score has improved from 31 in 2020 to 100 in 2022, whose weightage has been reduced in the overall score. It added that the selection of indicators is biased and incomplete.