Developing Countries Performs Poorly in the Environment Protection Index

The Environmental Performance Index (EPI) is a quantitative data-driven summary, and the rankings of countries are based on environmental sustainability. It is jointly developed by Yale University and Columbia University in collaboration with the World Economic Forum and the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission. The Index makes use of 40 performance indicators across 11 issue categories such as climate change performance, ecosystem vitality and so on, providing us with an insight into how likely and quickly could countries reach the goals set for 2050 carbon emissions.

The 2022 EPI was released in the month of June. It revealed that the European countries were heading the environment sustainability, whereas the Asia-Pacific countries were lagging. In general, the developed countries were leading in the performance index and the developing countries were falling short. Perhaps, the most surprising was that India was ranked last of the 180 countries assessed on their ecological impact. This reveals that India and other developing countries need to work on developing policies that could longstanding and sustain the environment, minimise carbon emissions, and improve the environmental protection schemes. For instance, although India has an extensive forest cover, they haven’t adequately worked on the flora and fauna protection schemes.

Developing countries performing poorly in the EPI may be because developing countries are focusing more on increasing their economic stability, which sometimes affects the environment negatively. For instance, India is one of the highest contributors to carbon emissions and burning fossil fuels. Similarly, another insight from the survey suggests that war-affected areas are performing poorly since they’re also focusing on bringing up their economy before focusing on environmental sustainability.

If the developing countries work at enhancing and improvising their policies, could we see a positive impact on environmental sustainability? Maybe not. The factors contributing to a low EPI rating are manifold and apart from policies, countries need to analyse their air quality, sanitation, drinking water, waste management etc. The Environment Performance Index has come as bad news for developing countries, but it can also be used as a reference to understand where it is required to change strategy, better its systems, optimise resources etc. For a positive change, the respective governments, organisations, NGOs, and citizens must work together. Collectively, we can change this World.