The overall results of this year’s Climate Change Performance Index.
We reflect back as we near the end of the year on 60 of the worlds nations implementation of mitigation targets and their standing on Climate Change.
United States Rates 56 out of 60 Countries
Under the Trump Administration, the United States has started to take several steps backwards on climate action, especially by declaring its withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and dismantling the Clean Power Plan. As such, policy evaluations dropped dramatically, especially regarding international climate diplomacy, where national experts rated its country’s performance very low.
National policy grades are still slightly more positive, as (1) the new government has not yet erased all the efforts of the previous administration and (2) there are positive signs that more ambitious action on climate protection will be taken by cities and states on the subnational level as well as by the economic sector to counterbalance the disastrous developments in federal policy. And ambitious action would be crucially needed with the USA being the second largest emitter in the world and emission levels therefore being considerably too high to be in line with a well-below-2°C pathway. A high rated growth rate of renewables over the course of the past years led to a slightly more positive rating in the renewables category compared to the other index categories. There are positive signs showing this development could be secured even against current policy developments.
The following is issued by Germanwatch, the NewClimate Institute and the Climate Action Network.
The overall ranking results of are defined by a country’s aggregated performance regarding 14 indicators within the four categories GHG Emissions, Renewable Energy, Energy Use and Climate Policy.
The CCPI 2018 results illustrate the main regional differences in climate protection and performance within the 56 evaluated countries and the EU. Despite decreasing growth rates in CO2 emissions, still no country performed well enough to reach the rating “very good” in this year’s index.
