Researchers have released 2024 rankings of 180 countries on their progress in mitigating climate change, safeguarding ecosystems, and promoting environmental health, based on 58 indicators across 11 issue categories. The 2024 Environmental Performance Index (EPI) tracks progress towards the SDGs, the goals of the Paris Agreement on climate change, and the targets of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF).
Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy at Yale University and the Center for International Earth Science Information Network at Columbia University developed the Index with support from the McCall MacBain Foundation.
Estonia leads this year’s rankings, largely due to replacing oil shale power plants with cleaner energy sources. Denmark, which emerged at the top of the 2022 EPI, in now in tenth place, as its pace of decarbonization decreased.
The rankings reveal that emissions in the world’s largest economies are falling too slowly or even rising. The US, for example, is ranked 34th. The Russian Federation is in 84th place. China and India are ranked 154th and 176th, respectively.
Myanmar, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (PDR), Pakistan, and Viet Nam occupy the bottom four spots, which underscores the urgency of international cooperation and support in addressing environmental challenges.
The underlying report provides a data-driven summary of the state of sustainability around the world and identifies countries leading on sustainability and calls out laggards. Beyond providing overall scores, the report examines individual issue categories, indicators, and peer comparisons to provide “a more nuanced understanding of the trends and drivers of environmental performance.”
A refined biodiversity metric in the 2024 EPI assesses how well countries are protecting ecosystems. The report finds that while countries have made progress in protecting land and seas, in many of these areas, commercial activities such as mining and trawling continue to take place. The report shows that in 23 countries, more than 10% of protected land is covered by croplands and buildings. In 35 countries, more fishing activity occurs inside marine protected areas (MPAs) than outside.
The report further concludes that, inter alia:
- The world is failing to address the climate crisis;
- While many countries have reached their protected area goals, many protected areas have failed to halt the loss of natural ecosystems;
- Trade-offs in environmental performance need to be addressed through international cooperation and “cultural changes in the type of development societies value”; and
- Persistent data gaps create serious challenges for robust, data-driven policymaking.
The 2024 Environmental Performance Index was published on 4 June 2024. [Publication: Environmental Performance Index 2024] [Policymakers’ Summary] [Yale School of the Environment News Release]