India retains top 10 slot in climate performance index

• The 17th edition of the Climate Change Performance Index, compiled by Germanwatch, the New Climate Institute, and the Climate Action Network, was released this week.
• The index, which monitors climate mitigation progress of 60 countries and the European Union, places three Scandinavian countries on top, while countries such as Morocco and the UK are also ranked high.

Climate Change Performance Index

• Climate Change Performance Index(CCPI) is an independent monitoring tool for tracking the climate protection performance of 60 countries and the EU – covering 92% of the Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions.
• CCPI assesses each country’s performance in four categories: GHG Emissions (40% of the overall ranking), Renewable Energy (20%), Energy Use (20%) and Climate Policy (20%).

Key findings of CCPI 2022

• The first three ranks of the overall rankings were kept empty because no country had performed well enough in all index categories to achieve an overall very high rating.
• Denmark has been placed 4th.
• It is the highest-ranked country in CCPI 2022 but does not perform well enough to achieve an overall very high rating.
• China, the biggest current polluter, was ranked at 37th position (down from 33rd last year).
• The second most current emitter, the US, was at 55th spot.
• Overall, Australia, South Korea and Russia and the United States are among the lowest performing countries along with Kazakhstan and Saudi Arabia.

India’s performance

• India is at number 10 with a score of 69.22.
• It is a high performer except in the renewable energy category, in which it is ranked “medium”.
• The report says that India is benefiting from its relatively low per-capita emissions.
• India’s performance was rated high in the GHG Emissions, Energy Use, and Climate Policy categories, and medium in Renewable Energy.