Introduction:
India has added another feather to its cap by joining the top 10 countries in this year’s Climate Change Performance Index or CCPI for the first time. As Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar put it, India is walking the talk by cutting down emission intensity by 21 per cent of its GDP. Moreover it is on track to achieve the goal of 35 per cent emission reduction as promised in the Paris summit in 2015. More commendable is the fact that while India has stayed true to its commitments on reducing its carbon footprint, advanced nations like the United States have been included in the worst-performing countries for the first time. Even rich nations like Australia and Saudi Arabia which are running their economies on the basis of coal industries are also among the countries with high carbon emissions. The CCPI report was released at the ‘COP 25’ climate change conference in the Spanish capital Madrid.
About the CCPI:
The CCPI is an independent monitoring tool of countries’ climate protection performance. It aims to enhance transparency in international climate politics and enables the comparability of climate protection efforts and progress made by individual countries.
- Germanwatch, the NewClimate Institute and the Climate Action Network publish the Index annually.
- Published annually since 2005, the Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI) tracks countries’ efforts to combat climate change.
- The implementation phase of the Paris Agreement enters a crucial phase in 2020, where countries are due to submit their updated Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). In light of this, the CCPI aims to inform the process of raising climate ambition. As a long-standing and reliable tool for identifying leaders and laggards in climate protection, the CCPI can be a powerful instrument to hold governments accountable for their responsibility to act on the climate crisis and of stimulating a race to the top in climate action.
- The CCPI 2020 results illustrate the main regional differences in climate protection and performance within the 57 evaluated countries and the EU.
Methodology:
- Country coverage: Covering more than 90% of global GHG emissions– On the basis of standardised criteria, the CCPI (as of CCPI 2020 edition) evaluates and compares the climate protection performance of 57 countries and of the European Union (EU), which are together responsible for more than 90% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
- Methodological approach and data sources
The CCPI assesses countries’ performance in four categories:- “GHG Emissions” (40% of overall score),
- “Renewable Energy” (20% of overall score),
- “Energy Use” (20% of overall score) and
- “Climate Policy” (20% of overall score).
- Aiming to provide a comprehensive and balanced evaluation of the diverse countries evaluated, a total of 14 indicators are taken into account
- The categories “GHG Emissions”, “ Renewable Energy” and “Energy Use” are each defined by four indicators:
- Current Level
- Past Trend
- Well-Below-2°C Compatibility of the Current Level
- Well-Below-2°C Compatibility of the Countries’ 2030 Target.
- The remaining 20% of the assessment is based on the globally unique climate policy section of the CCPI. The index category “Climate Policy” considers the fact that climate protection measures taken by governments often take several years to have an effect on the GHG-Emissions, Renewable Energy and Energy Use indicators. This category thereby covers the most recent developments in national climate policy frameworks, which are otherwise not projected in the quantitative data. This category’s indicators are (1) National Climate Policy and (2) International Climate Policy, and the qualitative data for these is assessed annually in a comprehensive research study. Its basis is the performance rating provided by climate and energy policy experts from non-governmental organisations (NGOs), universities and think tanks within the countries that are evaluated.
Key results overall rating:
- No country performs well enough in all index categories to achieve an overall very high rating in the index.
- Therefore, once again the first three ranks of the overall ranking remain empty.
- G20 performance: only two G20 countries rank among high performers (UK and India), while eight G20 countries rank under very low performers.
- EU performance: Poland supersedes Ireland as the worst performing EU country in this year’s index. Eight EU countries rank under high performers, while the EU as a whole falls six places and ranks under the group of medium performers in this year’s index.
- CCPI newcomer Chile ranks 11th with an overall high performance.
- Top three performers:
- Sweden is leading the group of high performing countries, as it has in the past two years.
- Denmark moves up ten ranks to become the second best performing country in this year’s CCPI.
- Morocco falls one place in the overall ranking but keeps its overall high performance.
- Bottom three performers:
- Chinese Taipei falls three places and now ranks 59th.
- Saudi Arabia still ranks very low, but for the first time does not occupy the bottom rank of the index.
- The United States, after falling three positions in last year’s ranking, continues the downwards trend, sinking to the bottom of the ranking.
India:
- India, for the first, time ranks among the top ten in this year’s CCPI.
- The current levels of per capita emissions and energy use are still comparatively low and, along with ambitious 2030 targets, result in high ratings for the GHG Emissions and Energy Use categories.
- While the country receives an overall medium rating in the Renewable Energy category, India’s 2030 renewable energy target is rated very high for its well-below-2°C compatibility.
- National experts commend the government for strong policies to support the expansion of renewable energy, which is needed to meet the ambitious targets as recent renewable energy capacity additions are below the level required.
- Despite an overall high rating for its Climate Policy performance, experts point out that the government has yet to develop a roadmap for the phase-out of fossil fuel subsidies that would consequently reduce the country’s high dependence on coal.
Major initiatives of the Government towards combating climate change:
- We have renewable energy targets of 450GW now.
- Green cover has been increased.
- Carbon Sink
- National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC): The Action plan covers eight major missions on Solar, Enhanced Energy Efficiency, Sustainable Habitat, Water, Sustaining the Himalayan Ecosystem, Green India, Sustainable Agriculture and Strategic Knowledge on Climate Change.
- International Solar Alliance (ISA): ISA was jointly launched by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and the then President of France, Francois Hollande in Paris on the side-lines of CoP 21 in 2015. The vision and mission of the alliance is to provide a dedicated platform for cooperation among solar resource rich countries that lie completely or partial between the Tropics of Capricorn & Cancer.
- State Action Plan on Climate Change (SAPCC): State governments have drafted climate strategies aligned with the eight National Missions under the NAPCC. The strategies focus on issues ranging from climate mitigation, energy efficiency, and resource conservation to climate adaptation.
- FAME Scheme for E-mobility: Union Government in April 2015 launched Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Hybrid and Electric vehicles (FAME) – India Scheme with an aim to boost sales of eco-friendly vehicles in the country. It is a part of the National Mission for Electric Mobility.
- Atal Mission for Rejuvenation & Urban Transformation (AMRUT) for Smart Cities.
- Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana: The scheme provides LPG connections to five crore below-poverty-line beneficiaries. The connections are given in the name of women beneficiaries to reduce their dependence on fossil fuels and conventional fuel like cow dung for cooking food, thus reducing air pollution.
- UJALA scheme: The scheme was launched by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi in January 2015 with a target of replacing 77 crore incandescent lamps with LED bulbs. The usage of LED bulbs will not only result in reducing electricity bills but also help in environment protection.
- Swachh Bharat Mission: Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (Clean India Movement) is a campaign that was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on October 2, 2014. The campaign seeks to clean the streets, roads and infrastructure of the country’s 4041 statutory cities and towns.
