Green Countries

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.

While the most-developed countries tend to create the healthiest environments for people, the less developed tend to be healthier for plants and animals. Wealthy nations can afford cleaner technologies, such as good sanitation and catalytic converters on their cars, but development takes a toll on the environment. Less developed countries often lack both dirty industries and clean drinking water. Spain gets high marks for sanitation; Tanzania scores well on biodiversity and habitat.

As one might expect, an individual country's ranking reflects to some degree the advantages or accidents of circumstance. Scandinavian countries and Switzerland have stable governments with money to spend on protecting the environment. Many sub-Saharan African nations are governed by corrupt, unstable regimes too broke to sustain even themselves. Yet a theme throughout the study is how any nation, regardless of circumstance, can better itself through good governance.

While no region scores more highly on average than Europe, Germany tends to outperform even its European peers, which is why the EPI team advised us to feature Germany as the leading example of a green nation. It does better than many other rich nations in regulating pesticides and managing agricultural use of water. It also excels at controlling carbon emissions and maintaining high water quality and low levels of soot in its cities. Germany has managed its resources well, adopting good practices such as recycling and investing in alternative energy.

France, too, ranks very highly—No. 10 overall and second in its income group (the second decile)—due largely to its long and careful devotion to nuclear power. Indeed, the generally high scores of nations that rely on nuclear energy, including many in Eastern Europe, is testimony to its value as a non-fossil-fuel source. By contrast, Belgium and the Netherlands, which share much in terms of population and geography with their neighbors, suffer from neglect of the environment—particularly in protecting native habitats.

The nations that find themselves in the middle of the income band tend to have the worst of both worlds, with mediocre scores on human health and poor scores on the kinds of measurements that would indicate heavy industry, such as poor air quality. India, for instance, is in many respects a poor country. Millions of its citizens lack adequate sanitation and clean drinking water, energy supply is spotty even in cities and the burning of biomass—wood and dung—is widespread, with deleterious effects on human health (lung disease) and the environment (soot and carbon emissions). On the other hand, rapid growth has brought air pollution and other ills, which will only get worse as citizens trade in scooters for automobiles.

Even at the bottom of the income scale, in the most challenged region of the world—sub-Saharan Africa—there are big differences in how countries perform vis-à-vis the environment. Niger scores a mere 6 out the EPI's 100-point scale, which makes it the most inhospitable country on the planet for man or beast, as well as the poorest. It scores badly on a key measure of how likely its people are to be afflicted by illnesses related to environmental risks, such as poor water quality or air pollution. Its sanitation is poor, its drinking water is full of nasty microbes and its citizens contract lung diseases from cooking fires. It's a place where a combination of environmental weakness—the country is largely a desert—poverty and political instability and neglect can lead to environmental degradation and societal collapse.