(15 November 2017) – Ireland is the worst performing EU member state on climate change action, according to a new report that has ranked 57 of the world’s major countries in order of commitment to emissions reductions and other tenets of the Paris Agreement.
According to a new performance index produced by European think tanks Germanwatch and the NewClimate Institute, Ireland was placed 49th out of the 57 countries evaluated.
The annual Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI), now in its 13th edition, has kept track of national contributions to climate change, taking into account their own strengths and weaknesses during that period.
Assessed areas included greenhouse gas emissions, renewable energy uptake, energy use and climate policy in line with the Paris Agreement targets. GHG emissions were given a 40% weighting in the evaluation.
The index left the top three places empty and concluded that no country worldwide has done enough across the 14 indicators evaluated in order to be classed in the ‘very high’ section.
The EU gets an average score and economic powerhouses Japan, China, the United States and Korea were all judged to have done poorly and prop up the index along with Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia. (EurActiv)