India manages to climb three spots and is ranked 11th in this year’s Climate Change Performance Index
At a time when carbon dioxide emissions have started to rise after three years of stability, there is a “lack of political will” in most nations to phase out fossil fuels with the necessary speed, according to a report released at the 24th Conference of Parties (COP 24) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
The Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI) 2019, released December 10, 2018 by Germanwatch and the NewClimate Institute, shows that only few countries have started working towards limiting global warming below 2°C or even at 1.5°C.
Neither is any of the 56 countries or the European Union on the 2°C pathway, nor is their ambition or the level of implementation high enough to reach the target. Niklas Höhne, co-author of the CCPI from NewClimate Institute, says, “There are bright spots in all categories, but no country performs well in all categories. If all countries would follow the leaders, we would come a long way towards a well below 2°C pathway.”
India, although, has managed to increase its standing in the index by three places to 11. The index takes into account every country’s aggregated performance in 14 indicators under four categories—greenhouse gas emissions, renewable energy, energy use and climate policy.
Renewable energy has helped India improve its performance and join the group of medium performers. But, experts in the country still argue that plans to build new coal-fired power plants spell trouble for the positive developments in the renewable energy sector. What led to India’s high ranking in the emissions category were low levels of per capita GHG emissions and an ambitious mitigation target for 2030.
Sweden leads this ranking, followed by Morocco and Lithuania. The bottom five are Saudi Arabia, the United States, Islamic Republic of Iran, Republic of Korea and Chinese Taipei with all of them scoring low or very low in almost all categories. China ranks 33 and is too in the group of medium-performing countries.
Jan Burck, co-author of the CCPI at Germanwatch, says, “Based on techno-economic developments in the last years, delay in implementation of low-carbon solutions can hardly be justified. While the G20 summit has shown strong support of 19 countries to support the Paris Agreement, the political will of those governments to set the right frameworks and incentives for its national implementation is not yet reflected in these words.”
The index highlights that the gap between current emission levels and what is needed to put the world on track for a well-below-2°C or even 1.5°C pathway is widening every day.
Source: downtoearth.org.in
