Global report card of green countries/US falls short

A global report card on nations doing the most, and least, to clean up the environment.

...the EPI is the best measure we have of how nations are faring in the battle to save the environment, and the findings are striking. As one might expect, the overall rankings place small, wealthy Scandinavian societies at the top, and poor, war-torn African nations at the bottom. But one big surprise is that size is no excuse for poor performance; big and small nations occupy both the top and bottom ranks. And bigger surprises come when you compare nations with peers of similar income, or with neighbors. In the following pages, you'll find chapters on the best—and worst—nations in every income group: the rich, the middle class and the poor.

China in particular has long argued that it is too poor to afford the Western luxury of environmental awareness. The EPI exposes this claim to be bogus. China ranks last among 15 nations in its income group (the fifth decile), behind Vietnam. If Colombia, the group's leader, can afford environmental concern, why can't China?

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In its environmental priorities, the United States is in some ways remarkably similar to China, the EPI reveals. Like China, the United States scores poorly among countries in its income class (the top 10 percent), ranking third from the bottom, due in large part to terrible scores for emissions, which are heavily weighted in the index because of their contribution to global warming. And like China, the weak U.S. emissions scores are due in part to reliance on coal. In the EPI, the United States scores 38 on carbon emissions from electricity generation, compared with an average of 68 for countries of similar wealth. That statistic lowers the U.S. score in emissions per capita, which Yale puts at 56, far below the peer-group average of 74.

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Again, it comes down to moral and political will. Trying to excuse the lack of it by stating anything else is simply bogus. Even in Kenya people are turning to solar and they hardly have an economy to speak of. So the US, China, and other rich countries will be exposed for the morally bankrupt leadership they have all at the expense of this planet and its people just to make gold bars that will serve no purpose without a planet.