downtoearth-subscribe

The Climate Change Performance Index 2018

With a high rating in the emissions and energy use categories, India has climbed six places to 14th th position amongst 60 countries in the latest Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI) released by Germanwatch. With its still low per capita emissions, the country’s emissions level is showing compatibility with a well-below-2°C pathway.

Recognizing the urgency to take immediate action in protecting the global climate, the 21st Conference of the Parties, held in December 2015 in Paris, made a groundbreaking achievement in adopting the goal to limit global warming to “well below” 2°C and to pursue efforts to limit warming to 1.5°C. Under the Paris Agreement, for the first time climate action was anchored in the context of international law. This requires countries to make their own unique contribution to the prevention of dangerous climate change. The next crucial step to follow this agreement is the rapid implementation by the signing parties of concrete measures to make their individual contributions to the global goal. For the past 13 years, the Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI) has been keeping track of countries’ efforts in combating climate change. The varying initial positions, interests and strategies of the numerous countries make it difficult to distinguish their strengths and weaknesses and the CCPI has been an important tool in contributing to a clearer understanding of national and international climate policy. To demonstrate existing measures more accurately and to encourage steps toward effective climate policy, evaluated the design of the CCPI this year with several achievements: For the first time, it is monitoring the development of all greenhouse gas emissions of the 56 countries and the EU that are assessed in the CCPI. In addition to that, the index now is suited even better to measure how well countries are on track to the global goals of the Paris Agreement. It does so by not only comparing countries by their development and recent trends in the three categories “GHG Emissions”, “Renewable Energy” and “Energy Use”, but also the 2°C-compatibility of their current status and future targets in each of these categories. The index also continues to evaluate countries’ ambition and progress in the field of climate policy.

Related Content