A non-profit in Germany called Germanwatch has its eye on more than just its own domestic climate policy. The organization just released a Climate Change Performance Index ranking 56 countries that together make up 90 percent of global emissions.
The index takes three factors into consideration: 1) emissions (excluding agricultural), worth 50 percent of the score; 2) emission trends (are emissions decreasing, increasing, and how quickly?), worth 30 percent of the score; and 3) policy, worth 10 percent of the score.
The last two factors help Germany land the #2 spot and cause the U.S. to land the second to last spot [JR: We just beat out Australia and Canada for second to last, but couldn't quite top (bottom?) Saudi Arabia]. Despite our high level of emissions, we could rank higher if we didn’t peg our progress to greenhouse gas intensity and actually participated in (beyond simply appearing at) international negotiations, or had some sort of domestic game plan.
According to the report, our ranking could be 20 seats higher simply with policy change. The U.S. fell a few seats between this report and last year’s, but with any luck, a new president, and more and more legislation in Congress, we’ll start to move up the rankings.
Previous in TP Climate Progress
As I’ve noted before, increasing fuel efficiency in autos will not make a difference unless we modify urban developement policies and upgrade, build and modernize transportation systems.
“Even though fuel efficiency and greater use of alternative fuels can contribute to lower petroleum consumption, California cannot meet its long‐range goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions without fundamental changes to the way we meet our mobility needs. Changing the patterns that cities take as they grow so that destinations are closer to people’s homes and channeling urban growth so that public transit can assume a larger burden of travel demand are elements of the longer‐term strategy that the state must develop if gains made in other policy areas are not to be overwhelmed by future population growth.”