10 December 2018: NewClimate Institute, Germanwatch and the Climate Action Network (CAN) released the 2019 Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI), which tracks the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of 56 countries and the EU. The CCPI aims to enhance transparency in international climate politics by highlighting countries with best practice climate policies and noting those countries that have failed to take ambitious climate action.

The 2019 CCPI measures countries’ performances in three categories: GHG emissions; renewable energy; and energy use. For each category, the Index analyzes countries based on their nationally determined contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement on climate change to determine if they are on track to a below 2°C pathway. Each category includes four indicators on recent developments, current levels, 2°C compatibility of the current performance and an evaluation of the countries’ 2030 targets in each category.

The Index finds that “no country performed well enough to reach the ranking very good” in the 2019 Index. Sweden, Morocco, Lithuania, Latvia and the UK lead the rankings with high ratings. France, Mexico, Germany and the Czech Republic fall into the medium performing countries. Indonesia, Austria and New Zealand rank as low performers. The bottom five performers on the 2019 Index are Saudi Arabia, the US, Iran, the Republic of Korea and Chinese Taipei.

No country performed well enough to reach the very good ranking.

On GHG emissions, when considering emissions from land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF), Sweden leads the ranking, followed by Egypt and Malta. On renewable energy, Latvia performed the best, followed by Sweden and New Zealand. Morocco had the greatest improvement among countries in this category, moving to the medium performing countries. On energy use, Ukraine, Malta, Morocco and Romania ranked the highest, mostly due to their low current levels of energy use. The Index observes that emerging economies tend to perform well on the energy use category but some countries, such as Thailand, Turkey, Algeria, India and Indonesia, have increased their energy use over the past few years.

In addition, the 2019 Index includes a category on climate policy. This category recognizes that measures taken by governments to reduce GHG emissions can take several years to reflect on emissions, renewable energy and energy use indicators. On climate policy, Portugal, France, the Netherlands, Sweden and Morocco all scored high on national and international climate policy. Australia, Turkey and the US are among the worst performing countries, performing low on national climate policy as well as “hindering progress in international negotiations.” The Index further observes that some countries, including Germany, Canada and the UK, “perform relatively well on the international stage” yet fail to implement policy measures at the national level.

The CCPI website provides interactive maps and tables that display results for all 56 countries and the EU as well as country-specific scorecards. The CCPI has tracked countries efforts to combat climate change for the past 14 years. Its 2019 edition was launched during the Katowice Climate Change Conference, meeting in Poland from 2-14 December 2018. [Publication: 2019 CCPI] [Publication Landing Page]