New study ranks countries on environment impact
Adelaide, Australia - A new study led by the University of Adelaide’s target=”_blank”>Environment Institute has ranked most of the
world’s countries for their environmental impact.
The research uses seven indicators of environmental degradation
to form two rankings - a proportional environmental impact index,
where impact is measured against total resource availability, and
an absolute environmental impact index measuring total
environmental degradation at a global scale.
Led by the Environment Institute’s Director of Ecological
Modelling Professor Corey Bradshaw, the study has been published in
the on-line, peer-reviewed science journal
target=”_blank”>PLoS ONE
The world’s 10 worst environmental performers according to the
proportional environmental impact index (relative to resource
availability) are: Singapore, Korea, Qatar, Kuwait, Japan,
Thailand, Bahrain, Malaysia, Philippines and Netherlands.
In absolute global terms, the 10 countries with the
worst environmental impact are (in order, worst first): Brazil,
USA, China, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, India, Russia, Australia and
Peru.
The indicators used were natural forest loss, habitat
conversion, fisheries and other marine captures, fertiliser use,
water pollution, carbon emissions from land use and species
threat.
“The environmental crises currently gripping the planet are the
corollary of excessive human consumption of natural resources,”
said Professor Bradshaw.
“There is considerable and mounting evidence that elevated
degradation and loss of habitats and species are compromising
ecosystems that sustain the quality of life for billions of people
worldwide.”
Professor Bradshaw said these indices were robust and
comprehensive and, unlike existing rankings, deliberately avoided
including human health and economic data - measuring environmental
impact only.
Proportional environmental
impact (179 countries; top panel) and absolute environmental impact
rank (171 countries; bottom panel) (darker grey = higher impact)
out of 228 countries considered are shown. Environmental impact
ranks (proportional and absolute) combine ranks for natural forest
lost, habitat conversion, marine captures, fertilizer use, water
pollution, carbon emissions and proportion of threatened
species.
The study, in collaboration with the National University of
Singapore and Princeton University, found that the total wealth of
a country (measured by gross national income) was the most
important driver of environmental impact.
“We correlated rankings against three socio-economic variables
(human population size, gross national income and governance
quality) and found that total wealth was the most important
explanatory variable - the richer a country, the greater its
average environmental impact,” Professor Bradshaw said.
There was no evidence to support the popular idea that
environmental degradation plateaus or declines past a certain
threshold of per capital wealth (known as the Kuznets curve
hypothesis).
“There is a theory that as wealth increases, nations have more
access to clean technology and become more environmentally aware so
that the environmental impact starts to decline. This wasn’t
supported,” he said.
target=”_blank”>More details and tables available
here
Source: www.adelaide.edu.au
