Dhaka, 25 Jan, Abnews: Bangladesh is ranked the second worst country in curbing environmental pollution, according to an Environmental Performance Index (EPI) ranking report.
The EPI ranking, published on the sidelines of the annual World Economic Forum meet in Davos on Tuesday, places Bangladesh on the second last among 180 countries – only ahead of Burundi.
At the bottom of the 2018 EPI rankings are Nepal (31.44), India (30.57), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (30.41), Bangladesh (29.56), and Burundi (27.43).
Low scores on the EPI are indicative of the need for national sustainability efforts on a number of fronts, especially cleaning up air quality, protecting biodiversity, and reducing GHG emissions. Some of the lowest-ranking nations face broader challenges, such as civil unrest, but the low scores for others can be attributed to weak governance. We draw special attention to the issue category of Air Quality. As the dominant source of diseases and disability in our data, countries that score poorly in the 2018 EPI on Air Quality, such as India (Air Quality score of 5.75), China (14.39), and Pakistan (15.69), face a public health crisis that demands urgent attention.
The United States places 27th in the 2018 EPI, with strong scores on some issues, such as Water & Sanitation (90.92) and Air Quality (97.52), but weak performance on others, including deforestation (8.84) and GHG emissions (45.81). This ranking puts the United States near the back of the industrialized nations, behind the United Kingdom (6th), Germany (13th), Italy (16th), Japan (20th), Australia (21st) and Canada (25th).
At the top of the rankings, Switzerland leads the world in the 2018 EPI with a score of 87.42 in overall environmental performance. Switzerland’s top ranking reflects strong performance across most issues, especially Climate & Energy and Air Pollution.
France (83.95), Denmark (81.60), Malta (80.9), and Sweden (80.51) round out the top five countries in the 2018 EPI. - EPI website
ABN/Adrian/Jasim/AD