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January 28, 2010
Iceland Leads Environmental Index
The use of renewable energy resources in Iceland has always attracted much attention abrad. A new ranking of the world’s nations by environmental performance places Iceland at the top of the list with 93.5 points out of one hundred possible.
The Environmental Performance Index, which is compiled every two years by Yale and Columbia University researchers, was published at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, which is now ongoing. While the other Nordic countries are also near the top of the list, the United States ranked 61st, and China 121st.
Daniel C. Esty, director of the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy, who oversees the index project, said in an interview with the New York Times: “Countries that take seriously the environment as a policy challenge do improve, and those that don’t deteriorate. Both the U.S. and China are suffering because they’re industrial and haven’t been paying much attention to environmental policy.”
The main reason why Iceland is at the top of the list is the utilization of hydropower and geothermal resources.
The index is accessible online at epi.yale.edu, assigns each country a cumulative score based on its performance in areas that include environmental health, preservation of habitat and reductions in greenhouse gases, air pollution and waste.
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