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The 2018 Environmental Performance Index (EPI) finds that air quality is the leading environmental threat to public health. Now in its twentieth year, the biennial report is produced by researchers at Yale and Columbia Universities in collaboration with the World Economic Forum. The tenth EPI report ranks 180 countries on 24 performance indicators across 10 issue categories covering environmental health and ecosystem vitality.
Top Five Nations: Switzerland leads the world in sustainability, followed by France, Denmark, Malta, and Sweden. Switzerland’s top ranking reflects strong performance across most issues, especially air quality and climate protection. In general, high scorers exhibit long-standing commitments to protecting public health, preserving natural resources, and decoupling greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from economic activity.
Bottom five: India and Bangladesh come in near the bottom of the rankings, with Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Nepal rounding out the bottom five. Low scores on the EPI are indicative of the need for national sustainability efforts on a number of fronts, especially cleaning up air quality, protecting biodiversity, and reducing GHG emissions
India’s performance: India’s improved ranking in the World Bank’s ‘Ease of Doing Business’ Index (from 130 to 100) have been cause for much celebration. However, coinciding with this is the news that out of the 180 countries assessed, India ranks low in the Environmental Performance Index (EPI) 2018, slipping from rank 141 in 2016, to 177 in 2018. Environmental Health: India ranked 178 in air quality, 145 in water and sanitation and 175 in heavy metals. The report said there is “an urgent need to ramp up sanitation efforts in India”. It also acknowledged India’s steps towards building separate toilets for girls and women. Ecosystem Vitality: India ranked 125 in agriculture, 131 in air pollution, 139 in biodiversity and habitat, 120 in climate and energy, 53 in fisheries, 68 in forests and 107 in water resources.
Reasons for poor score: India’s low scores are because of its poor performance in the environmental health policy objective: Deaths attributed to PM2.5 (particulate matter of a diameter of 2.5 micron) have risen over the past decade and are estimated at 1,640,113, annually (Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, 2017). India’s annual prescribed standards of PM 2.5 and PM 10 are 40 and 60 micrograms per cubic metre (ug/m3). The corresponding 24-hour standards are 60 and 100 respectively. “Despite government action, pollution from solid fuels, coal and crop residue burning, and emissions from motor vehicles continue to severely degrade the air quality,” the report said of India.
Green initiatives: A look at recent initiatives shows that the government has set ambitious targets for environmental protection. In December 2015, it notified new, strict environmental standards for coal-fired power plants, to be effective from January 2018. An aggressive target was set to implement Bharat Stage VI emission norms from April 1, 2020, skipping Stage V norms. In 2017, the Minister of State for Power and Renewable Energy said that a road map was being prepared so that only electric vehicles would be produced and sold in the country by 2030. In order to accelerate the transition to renewable sources of power, the government, under the National Solar Mission, revised the target for setting up solar capacity from 20 GW to 100 GW by 2021-22. The Centre has also assured the Supreme Court of India that the highly polluted Ganga will be cleaned up by 2018.
Gap areas: Unfortunately, there appears to be a big gap between policy goals and action. While we seem to be moving in the right direction on solar targets, we are seriously lagging behind in a number of other goals. For example, the government has gone back on its promise of implementing strict power plant emission norms by December 2017, and may even dilute the norms. The automobile industry has categorically stated that based on current estimates, full conversion to electric vehicles is realistically possible only by 2047. After setting electronics manufacturers a reasonable annual electronic waste collection target of 30% of the products sold in the market, the figure has now been relaxed to 10%. And late last year, the Comptroller and Auditor General, in a report, pulled up the government for not developing an action plan and for its poor utilisation of allocated funds in the clean-up of the Ganga.
Way forward: Rapid transition to solar energy can be accomplished not only by enabling subsidies but also by pricing the more polluting fuels correctly. The strict environmental standards for coal plants are expected to do precisely that — the price we pay for coal-based electricity reflect, at least partially, the true costs of producing such electricity. The failure to implement these standards would be a step backwards. Similarly, the transition to electric vehicle use would be aided by pricing petrol and diesel, and perhaps the vehicles that use these fuels, to reflect their external costs to society. Being among the four worst countries in the world in terms of environmental performance should hopefully serve as a wake-up call.
By: Dr. Vivek Rana ProfileResourcesReport error
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