India ranked above China, the European Union, and most emerging economies on its climate performance last year, says an international assessment of climate-related actions released at the UN climate conference on Monday.
The Climate Change Performance Change Index (CCPI), 2019, released by Germanwatch on the sidelines of the negotiations has ranked India 11 among 60 countries, although the top three ranks remained vacant as no country was deemed to deserve those slots.
Climate experts point out that besides positive actions in the renewable energy domain, India’s low per capita greenhouse gas emissions — a major factor in the exercise — has contributed significantly to India’s performance.
“We have considered climate policy, emissions and targets, renewable energy and energy use patterns in 14 sub-parameters under four main parameters for the rankings, with the maximum weightage given to greenhouse gas emissions,” Niklas Hoenhe of New Climate Institute associated with the exercise told The Telegraph.
India scored 62.93 this year compared to 60.02 last year. In contrast, China is at the 33rd position while the European Union is in the 16th position. Brazil and South Africa are ranked 22nd and 39th.
Saudi Arabia is the worst performing country – ranked 60 -- while the United States under President Donald Trump slipped from last year’s index to now occupy the 59th position. Germany slipped to its lowest rank since the rating started 14 years back. Overall 14 countries are in ‘high’ rating category, 13 in ‘medium’ rating and 27 in ‘low’ and ‘very low’ categories.
“India did well on areas like its climate actions, and renewable energy performance but has been pegged back by its total emissions which are quite high and by its continued reliance on coal powered thermal power plants,” climate expert Jan Burke told The Telegraph when quizzed on India’s performance.
Another climate expert Harjeet Singh, the global lead of ActionAid in climate change, hailed India’s performance in renewable sector but observed that it could do even better through expansion of rooftop solar power systems and more action to preserve forests.
