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Dan Michaelson — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 20:41:22 +0000

For more information on the 2010 Environmental Performance Index, please contact:

Christine Kim
Research and Program Director
Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy
195 Prospect St.
New Haven, CT, 06511
Tel: +1-203-432-6065
epi@yale.edu

For web support, please contact epi@linkedbyair.net.

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Dan Michaelson — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:53:01 +0000

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About

Dan Michaelson — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 17:48:46 +0000

Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy, Yale University

Jay Emerson, Principal Investigator

Daniel C. Esty, Director

Christine Kim, Research Director

Tanja Srebotnjak, Statistician

Center for International Earth Science Information Network, Columbia University

Marc A. Levy, Deputy Director

Valentina Mara, Research Associate

Alex de Sherbinin, Senior Research Associate

Malanding Jaiteh, GIS Specialist

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Dan Michaelson — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 06:26:01 +0000

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Dan Michaelson — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 06:15:40 +0000

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Christine Kim — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 17:06:22 +0000

Country Groups

Eliza Cava — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 16:49:39 +0000

Marine Protection

Eliza Cava — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 21:22:19 +0000

Metrics/MarineProtection

Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are the aquatic equivalent of terrestrial reserves. They are legally set aside for protection from human disturbances, such as fishing, industrial exploitation, and recreational activities (depending on the type of MPA). They help alleviate fishing mortality, reduce the harvesting of non-target species, and ensure fishing gear does not impact the marine environment. In addition to protecting biodiversity, MPAs aid in the restoration of commercially viable fish populations.

The Marine Protected Areas (MPA) indicator measures the percentage of a country’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) that is under protection. Protected area criteria were taken from MPA Global, a database developed in conjunction with the Sea Around Us Project. The indicator was calculated by comparing the area of MPA (in sq. km) to the country’s total area of EEZ, as reported in the Global Maritime Boundaries database. Similar to biome protection, our target is the protection of 10% of EEZ waters.

Critical Habitat Protection

Eliza Cava — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 21:20:55 +0000

Metrics/CriticalHabitatProtection

Comparable indicators of species conservation by country can be difficult to develop. This is partly due to the fact that for countries with larger natural endowments (e.g. more endemic species), there are greater conservation burdens. Moreover, species are assessed as threatened on the basis of their global conservation status. Even if a country takes extensive measures to protect a species in its own territory, it might still rank poorly on an index that looks at the number of endangered species within its borders. Thus, a country with few species, threatened or otherwise, could receive a high score, while a country with many endemics and threatened species that is working hard to conserve them could be penalized because a neighboring country is doing little by way of biodiversity conservation (see Box 4.3 in the full report for a discussion of these issues).

The Critical Habitat Protection indicator partly addresses these issues by assigning countries responsibility for the protection of endangered species found at Alliance for Zero Extinction (AZE) sites. The Alliance for Zero Extinction is a joint initiative of 52 biodiversity conservation organizations. It aims to prevent extinctions by identifying and safeguarding key sites selected as the remaining refuges of one or more Endangered or Critically Endangered species, as identified by the IUCN Red List criteria. The IUCN standard provides a consistent approach for AZE site designation across the world. Because of the rigorous criteria used to assign AZE sites, this indicator provides a good measure of how many gravely endangered species are receiving immediate conservation protection. Our target is the protection of 100% of sites, with the justification that there are a finite number of sites and the species in question are highly endangered. Countries with no AZE sites on their territories have total scores averaged around this indicator.

Biome Protection

Eliza Cava — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 21:19:33 +0000

Metrics/BiomeProtection

This indicator measures the degree to which a country achieves the target of protecting at least 10% of each terrestrial biome within its borders, and represents a weighted average of protection by biome. Weights are determined by the size of the biome (larger biomes receive greater weight). We adopted a target of 10% of each biome protected because that is the target most faithful to the existing international consensus. At its 7th Conference of the Parties, The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) set the following target: “At least 10% of each of the world’s ecological regions effectively conserved.” We treat protected status as a necessary but not sufficient condition for an ecological region to be classified as “effectively conserved.” How well protected areas are managed, the strength of the legal protections extended to them, and the actual outcomes on the ground, are all vital elements of a comprehensive assessment of effective conservation. Such measures are not available on a widespread basis, though there are efforts underway through the World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA) Science and Management Theme to compile data on protected area management effectiveness with a goal of eventually aggregating to national level measures.

Biodiversity & Habitat

Eliza Cava — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 21:17:56 +0000

Metrics/BiodiversityAndHabitat

Policy Focus

Human activities have altered the world’s terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems throughout history, but in the last 50 years the extent and pace of these changes has intensified, resulting in what the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment calls “a substantial and largely irreversible loss in the diversity of life on Earth” (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005). The sheer number of species at risk of extinction (16,306 species of plants and animals listed as threatened globally) clearly reflects the threat. Biodiversity – plants, animals, microorganisms and the ecological processes that interconnect them – forms the planet’s natural productivity. Protecting biodiversity ensures that a wide range of “ecosystem services” like flood control and soil renewal, the production of commodities such as food and new medicines, and finally, spiritual and aesthetic fulfillment, will remain available for current and future generations.

Conventional management approaches have focused on individual resources, such as timber or fish production, rather than on ecosystems as a whole. Metrics to measure performance have similarly been limited to simple output quantities (e.g., metric tons of fish caught). Recently policy goals have shifted away from this sectoral approach to managing natural resources. The result has been additional legislation aimed at maintaining the health and integrity of entire ecosystems, known as the “ecosystem approach.”

For want of accurate country-level data on species conservation efforts and management of habitats, the 2010 EPI uses measures of protected area coverage by terrestrial biome and by area of coastline in addition to a measure of the protection of highly endangered species.

Data Gaps and Deficiencies

Global information about the distribution of biodiversity, the condition of species and natural ecosystems, and the major stresses to ecosystems is not readily accessible. Much biodiversity information comes from field studies, whose data tend to be locally focused, inconsistently formatted, and dispersed across many scientific publications and databases. Many countries collect more detailed national-level data; however, it is generally unsuitable for the purposes of a global comparison. In response to this problem, some regions, such as the European Union, have begun establishing standards and protocols for biodiversity data collection. Yet even among countries participating in these efforts, significant information gaps remain.

For the 2010 EPI, we conducted a review of the entire 2010 Biodiversity Indicator Partnership (BIP) list of indicators and contacted a number of the lead agencies in hopes of supplementing our existing measures that focus on protected areas. Box 4.3 in the full report briefly highlights selected 2010 BIP measures of biodiversity that, with additional data or effort, could meet the EPI indicator selection criteria described in Chapter 2. It should be mentioned that protected areas coverage is a BIP indicator, and we are using BIP indicators in two other policy categories: Forest Cover Change (under Forests), and the Marine Trophic Index (under Fisheries). It is hoped that the Group on Earth Observations-Biodiversity Observation Network (GEO-BON) will soon be able to synthesize field data and satellite observations to come up with a global and regional assessment of the status of biodiversity, though it may be years before country-level assessments are possible. Our own experimentation with using satellite data to assess deforestation – an important factor in habitat loss – is described in Box 4.4 in the full report. The results were not sufficiently robust to be able to include in the 2010 EPI.

References (opens in new window)

Water Scarcity Index

Eliza Cava — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 21:11:38 +0000

Metrics/WaterScarcityIndex

This indicator is derived from national-level data from FAO’s AQUASTAT. The indicator represents the overuse of water derived by subtracting the recommended use fraction (0.4) from the ratio of total freshwater withdrawals (including surface and both renewable and fossil ground water) to total renewable water resources (not including desalinated or treated waste water). This proportion is then multiplied by a weight which is the ratio of freshwater withdrawal to total withdrawals (freshwater, desalinated water and treated wastewater). The target is <=0 overuse. The purpose of the weighting is to recognize that some arid countries require desalinated water owing to a lack of freshwater.

To illustrate the calculation of this indicator, we take the case of water-scarce United Arab Emirates (UAE). In 2005, UAE used 2.8 billion m3/yr of freshwater, but had only 0.15 billion m3/yr of renewable water. The raio of freshwater withdrawal to renewable water is 18.67, and from this the recommended use fraction 0.4 is subtracted, to arrive at an adjusted ratio of 18.27. However, in the case of UAE, only 70% (0.7) of the total water withdrawal is from renewable and non-renewable sources (such as fossil aquifers), while 23.8% are withdrawals from desalinated water and 6.2% from reuse of treated wastewater. To account for this, the overuse is weighted by the ratio of freshwater withdrawal to total water withdrawals (freshwater, desalinated and treated wastewater). Thus, the weighted water overuse is 18.27×0.7, or 12.79.

Water Stress Index

Eliza Cava — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 21:09:10 +0000

Metrics/WaterStressIndex

Water Stress is calculated as the percentage of a country’s territory affected by oversubscription of water resources. The 2010 EPI utilizes data from the University of New Hampshire’s Water Systems Analysis Group. The target for each country is to have no area of its territory affected by oversubscription. Water use is represented by local demands summed by domestic, industrial, and agricultural water withdrawals, and then divided by available water supply to yield an index of local relative water use. A high degree of oversubscription is indicated when the water use is more than 40% of available supply (WMO, 1997). Unlike the Water Scarcity Index (described below), the Water Stress Index helps to capture subnational variation in water use vs. availability. Thus, a country like Brazil, which is overall water-abundant, nevertheless has about 2% of its territory under water stress.

References (opens in new window)

Water Quality Index

Eliza Cava — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 21:08:09 +0000

Metrics/WaterQualityIndex

Many different physical, chemical, and biological parameters can be used to measure water quality. The 2010 EPI Water Quality Index (WQI) uses three parameters measuring nutrient levels (Dissolved Oxygen, Total Nitrogen, and Total Phosphorus) and two parameters measuring water chemistry (pH and Conductivity). These parameters were selected because they cover issues of global relevance (eutrophication, nutrient pollution, acidification, and salinization) and because they are the most consistently reported. The data were taken from the United Nations Global Environmental Monitoring System (GEMS) Water Programme, which maintains the only global database of water quality for inland waters, and the European Environment Agency’s Waterbase, which has better European coverage than GEMS.

For the nutrient measurements, dissolved oxygen is the measure of free (i.e., not chemically combined) oxygen dissolved in water. It is essential to the metabolism of all aerobic aquatic organisms and at reduced levels has been shown to cause both lethal and sub-lethal effects. Nitrogen and phosphorus are naturally occurring elements essential for all living organisms, and are often found in growth-limiting concentrations in aquatic environments. Increases in nitrogen and/or phosphorus in natural waters, which result largely from agricultural runoff and synthetic fertilizers or from municipal and industrial wastewater discharge, can result in significant water quality problems, including harmful algal blooms, hypoxia and declines in wildlife and wildlife habitat. Excesses have also been linked to higher amounts of chemicals that that are harmful for humans (EPA, 2010).

The last two parameters, acidity and alkalinity, are measured by pH – an important indicator of water quality in inland waters because it can affect aquatic organisms, both directly through impairing respiration, growth and development of fish, and indirectly through increasing the bioavailability of certain metals such as aluminum and nickel. Electrical conductivity is a measure of the ability of water to carry an electric current, which is dependent on the presence of ions. Increases in conductivity can lead to ecosystem changes that reduce biodiversity and alter community composition (Weber-Scannell and Duffy, 2007).

The WQI is a proximity-to-target composite of water quality, adjusted for monitoring station density in each country, with the maximum score of 100. Data were available to compute indicator values for 85 countries: 74 countries had recent data, and 11 had data from pre-1990 for which a regression model was used to impute post-1990 scores. A multiple imputation model based on statistical relationships between countries with data and a number of covariates (variables that can predict WQI scores) was used to compute WQIs for an additional 110 countries that had more than 10 sq. km of surface water bodies. Countries with surface water less than 10 sq. km were averaged around.

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Water (Effects On Ecosystem)

Eliza Cava — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 21:06:02 +0000

Metrics/WaterEffectsOnEcosystem

Policy Focus

Water is essential for economic development and for the wellbeing of humans and ecosystems. The intensification of many industrial and agricultural processes and the construction of dams and levees have affected the quality and availability of water. Where water resources are over-subscribed or heavily polluted, it negatively impacts aquatic ecosystems.

Monitoring water quantity and quality is essential for proper water management. This is all the more true as climatic and land use changes affect the abundance of water resources, the timing and amounts of rainfall, and rainwater runoff. Yet the number of monitoring stations remains inadequate in many countries.

Water issues are, by nature, interdisciplinary and multi-faceted. No single index can provide comprehensive information about water availability, use, quality, and access. The 2010 EPI contains three indicators that measure water quality, water stress (a measurement of areas within the country where water resources are oversubscribed), and water scarcity (a national level measure of water use divided by available water).

Data Gaps and Deficiencies

EPI 2010 provides a valuable snapshot of surface water issues for the countries for which data is available. However, as in other areas, there is a need for improvement in data scope, availability, reliability, and quality. For water quality, while the GEMS/Water database is a comprehensive global database with almost 4 million entries for lakes, reservoirs, rivers, and groundwater systems from more than 3,000 monitoring stations, there are still major gaps in country coverage and many countries are represented by only a handful of stations. For water stress, the global hydrological monitoring network is actually shrinking in size from a peak in the 1980s, and the gap in in situ monitoring can only partially be made up for by satellite remote sensing data sources. According to the World Water Development Report 3, “Worldwide, water observation networks provide incomplete and incompatible data on water quantity and quality for managing water resources and predicting future needs – and these networks are in danger of future decline” (Grabs, 2009).

Growing global demand for fresh water will make achieving targets for the three water indicators increasingly difficult. Also, non-water pressures such as air pollution, climate change, land management, and economic development can greatly affect many aspects of water quality and quantity, making the prioritization of water resource monitoring, management, and protection particularly urgent. Continued over-abstraction (and particularly abstraction of fossil ground water) cannot be sustained indefinitely. More effective monitoring of water quality and quantity on a country-by-country basis must occur in order to better inform policymaking and international efforts toward efficient and sustainable use while meeting the Millennium Development Goals.

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Non Methane Volatile Organic Compound Emissions

Eliza Cava — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 20:58:23 +0000

Metrics/NonMethaneVolatileOrganicCompounds

Non-methane volatile organic compounds, or NMVOCs, are a sub-category of volatile organic compounds, which contain carbon and are active in atmospheric reactions. Notably, they often react with NOX to form ozone, which can damage plant surfaces and irritate animal tissues.

The NMVOCs indicator is based on estimates of emissions compiled from the same three sources as for SO2 and NOX, and the same target was used. Like NOx, NMVOCs emissions were not included in the 2008 EPI because sufficient data was not available.

Sulfur Dioxide Emissions

Eliza Cava — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 20:57:16 +0000

Metrics/SulfurDioxideEmissions

Sulfur dioxide is the major cause of acid rain, which degrades trees, crops, water, and soil. SO2 can also form hazardous aerosols under certain atmospheric conditions. The sulfur dioxide indicator is based on estimates of emissions compiled from three different sources. In order of prioritization, the 2010 EPI indicator uses the UNFCCC Secretariat’s annual reported greenhouse gas data of Annex I and non-Annex I countries released in 2009, a cooperative effort’s “Regional Emission Inventory in Asia” (REAS Version 1.1), and the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency’s modeled Emission Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR 3.2).

There are no internationally agreed upon standards for sulfur dioxide emissions. Such a target would be controversial for several reasons. First, because SO2 disperses, local concentrations of SO2 can be high in areas with relatively low emissions. Second, different ecosystems exhibit different levels of sensitivity to SO2, and so a uniform emissions target can be both too stringent for some localities and too lax for others. The 2010 EPI adopted the conservative target of 0.01 Gg sulfur dioxide emissions per square kilometer. Emissions are divided by populated land area (any area with >5 persons per square km) so that results will not be artificially lowered for countries with large unpopulated areas.

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Ecosystem Ozone

Eliza Cava — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 20:55:49 +0000

Metrics/EcosystemOzone

In the troposphere, ozone shields the planet from dangerous ultraviolet radiation. At ground level, however, ozone is dangerous to living organisms. Ozone corrosively damages plant surfaces and irritates animal tissues. Plants can also directly absorb ozone through their pores, which can severely inhibit their functioning and growth. Ozone has the potential to degrade overall ecosystem health and productivity.

The ecological ozone metric seeks to specifically assess the impact of ozone on ecosystems. The Mozart- II measurement is not ideal because of its heavy reliance on modeled data rather than direct measurements and the outdated data (from the year 2000), but because of the significant impact of ozone on ecosystem vitality, we have included the indicator in hopes that in situ monitoring of ozone will become more widespread.

The ecological ozone indicator measures the extent to which high ozone concentrations are present during the vegetative growing season. Because ozone acutely affects plant development, the growing season and daylight intensity are important factors. For the 2010 EPI we used the same indicator we developed for the 2008 EPI. This indicator was calculated by summing ozone exceedences for each summer daylight hour over areas of exceedence, and then dividing by the country area.

The rationale for this method was as follows. Ozone’s negative effects on plants are most acute at particularly high levels or prolonged exposure. The parameter that we chose for assessing the critical level of ozone exposure for vegetation is the “Accumulated Ozone Threshold” from the International Cooperative Programme on Effects of Air Pollution on Natural Vegetation and Crops. The target stipulates that long-term ozone exposure should not exceed 3,000 ppb-hours over the three-month summer period (Mauzerall and Wong 2001). Any exposure over the threshold of 40 ppb counts as an exceedance. Thus, we used a gridded data set of vegetated areas and we summed values >=40 ppb per grid cell, and where cells exceeded 3,000 ppb-hour for the entire summer they were added to the total exceedance figure. Thus, if a cell had 50 ppb over a total of 60 daylight hours, it would meet the threshold, and if it had greater than 60 hours it would exceed it.

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Nitrogen Oxides Emissions

Eliza Cava — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 20:53:55 +0000

Metrics/NitrogenOxides

Nitrogen oxides are a group of highly reactive gases. They contribute to the formation of ground-level ozone, fine particulates, and acid rain. The damages associated with NOX overlap heavily with those listed for SO2 and acid rain. Additionally, nitrogen from NOX emissions can dissolve in water and lead to eutrophication.

The NOX indicator is based on estimates of emissions compiled from the same three sources as for SO2. NOX emissions were not included in the 2008 EPI because sufficient data was not available, but the inclusion here reflects a step forward in emissions measurements and reporting. For the same reasons stated for SO2, there are no internationally agreed upon targets. Consequently, we adopted the same target of 0.01 Gg emissions per square kilometer of populated land area.

Air Pollution (Effects On Ecosystem)

Eliza Cava — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 20:52:38 +0000

Metrics/AirEffectsOnEcosystem

Policy Focus

Beyond its human health impacts, air pollution is also detrimental to ecosystems. Through direct exposure and accumulation, reactive compounds such as ozone (O3), benzene (C6H6), sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxides (NOX), and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) negatively impact plant growth. Also, SO2 and NOX are the primary contributors to acid rain, which can diminish fish stocks, decrease biological diversity in sensitive ecosystems, degrade forests and soils, and diminish agricultural productivity.

Data Gaps and Deficiencies

There is room for improvement in these indicators. The SO2, NOX, and NMVOCs indicators use multiple data sources to triangulate actual emissions but lack an internationally agreed upon target. The modeled ozone data is less robust, but has a well-defended target. Importantly, the temporal aspect of emissions is still a question that lacks measurement and regulatory consistency. For example, the question of whether to use daily averages or hourly maximums of pollutant concentrations is still unresolved and may vary depending on the pollutant in question.

Existing data sources for air pollution concentrations and emissions are either incomplete or difficult to use in global comparisons. Air quality monitoring systems vary significantly between countries, often producing fundamentally dissimilar data. In addition, many countries have too few monitoring stations to produce representative samples.

In comparison with monitoring station data, air pollution transport models provide relatively easy access to data. The benefit of models is that they are able to generate values for large spatial domains, but they also carry with them a level of uncertainty, making it inadvisable to rely on them exclusively. Using models in conjunction with in situ monitoring or emissions data, as we have here, can help to produce a more balanced picture.

A complete air pollution index for the EPI would contain indicators for particulate matter, ozone, NO2 and SO2, carbon monoxide (CO), lead, methane, ammonia, mercury, black carbon, persistent organic compounds, VOCs, and benzene. We removed CO from this policy category because its effects are primarily on human health, and methane because it is mostly a greenhouse gas. Unfortunately, reliable data for the remainder of the pollutants listed are not available.

Ideally, future iterations of the EPI would look at concentrations of the pollutants relative to the buffering capacity of specific ecosystems. Early iterations of the Environmental Sustainability Index used exceedence maps, but these have not been updated.

An ideal performance measure for ecosystem vitality and air pollution would include time-specific emissions quantities, the mapping of pollutant movement, the ecological sensitivity to pollutants by area, and the level of clear policy commitments to emissions reductions. The European Union is a model in this regard because it meets all of these monitoring goals; however, there are no global datasets with all of these measures.

Industrial Greenhouse Gas Emissions Intensity

Eliza Cava — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 20:20:15 +0000

Metrics/IndustrialGreenhouseGasEmissionsIntensity

Differences in per capita emissions often have more to do with history and circumstance than current performance. Industrial emissions intensity, on the other hand, captures a largely contemporaneous process. The measurement reflects the total CO2 emitted by the industrial sector, divided by the total industrial GDP, measured as purchasing power parity (PPP). It is therefore a measure of emissions efficiency and offers insight into how a country’s industrial economy is managed.

Countries that perform best on this indicator are those that have invested in low-carbon growth in their industrial sectors through energy conservation, investment in clean technologies, or other changes that result in industrial processes with lower emissions. It is a fair measure because it does not reflect shifts from industrial to service-based economies, as an emissions-per-GDP measure may, which has more to do with a development path than climate policy. The target for emissions intensity of the industrial sector is 36.3 tons CO2 per $1,000,000 (USD, 2005, PPP). This value is a reduction that is proportionate to the target for GHG emissions per capita.

References (opens in new window)

Co2 Emissions Per Electricity Generation

Eliza Cava — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 20:18:56 +0000

Metrics/CO2EmissionsPerElectricityGeneration

Emissions per capita are important but do not directly point to some of the most critical areas of the economy. The majority of global anthropogenic GHG emissions, about 65% (IEA 2009), come from the energy sector. Within this sector, the largest contributor is electricity generation, which makes up 41% of energy-related GHG emissions (IEA 2009). Therefore, the 2010 EPI uses the emissions intensity of the electricity sector to help measure countries’ performance on climate change. IEA data for CO2 emissions is divided by the total associated electricity output. This reflects the relative efficiency of electricity production.

The target is set at zero emissions per unit of output as the theoretically ideal target for the indicator. Many climate change economists have argued that abating pollution to this point is not optimal due to the exponentially increasing costs of abating the last units of pollution. While these are important considerations, choosing an ideal indicator allows a greater spread among the countries’ environmental performances. Ultimately, the relative distance to a target determines a country’s EPI score rather than their absolute distance, and so an overly stringent target does not affect cross-country comparisons.

This indicator reflects a snapshot of current performance. It does not capture historical contributions to GHG emissions except through the implication of energy path-dependence. Where data are missing for emissions per unit output, values were imputed by calculating renewable energy consumption as a percentage of total energy consumption. For cogeneration facilities, heat output is converted to KWH to estimate total electricity emissions.

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Greenhouse Gas Emissions Per Capita

Eliza Cava — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 20:17:38 +0000

Metrics/GreenhouseGasEmissionsPerCapita

Countries with large populations tend to emit more GHGs (IPCC2007 WGIII). Therefore, simply measuring gross emissions is not a helpful way of comparing country performance. A more useful comparison of performance across countries is GHG emissions per capita. The GHGs in this calculation include CO2 from fossil fuels, land use change emissions, and non-CO2 gasses like methane and NOX, and are measured in metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents. The lower
the per capita emissions, the less the average person in a given country contributes to climate change. Developing nations generally have the lowest per capita emissions due to their relatively small industrial sectors and lifestyles with lower commercial energy intensities; however, they often rank among the highest for land use change emissions.

The 2010 EPI uses a target value of 50% reductions below 1990 levels by 2050, which equals 2.5 Mt CO2-equivalent annually per person. Because the indicator divides by population, it is necessary to set a “target population” value. While population growth has major environmental implications, we chose to apply the median global population projection to 2050 across all countries.

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Climate Change

Eliza Cava — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 20:14:59 +0000

Metrics/ClimateChange

Policy Focus

The forecasted impacts of climate change- from sea level rise, coastal flooding, and extensive glacial deterioration to droughts, heat waves, and desertification- are already being felt globally and are projected to accelerate in severity. The impacts of climate change even at the “low end” (e.g., if we are able to limit global temperature rises to circa 2o C) will dramatically affect human health, water resources, agriculture, and ecosystems. While most greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) to date have originated in developed nations, developing countries are, and will continue to be, the most affected by climate change impacts (Stern 2006).

GHGs are emitted from a variety of human activities including electricity generation, transportation, industrial agriculture, forestry, and waste management (IPCC 2007). Globally, the energy sector generates the largest share of anthropogenic GHG emissions, but individual countries’ emissions profiles vary greatly. Many developing nations have very low emissions from the energy sector but high GHG emissions from deforestation and agriculture. For example, Indonesia produces the third most GHGs in the world, behind China and the United States, due to rapid and extensive land use change (World Bank 2007). Some developed countries have actually reduced their energy sector emissions by investing in renewable energy technologies that can produce energy with low or no emissions. Recognizing the heterogeneity of GHG emission sources across countries is important for developing appropriate climate change mitigation strategies and highlights the complex nature of developing climate policy.

To capture various aspects of environmental performance on climate change, the 2010 EPI assesses three different indicators. First, GHG emissions per capita, including emissions from land use change. Second, carbon dioxide emissions per unit of electricity generation, and third, industrial GHG intensity per unit of generated PPP.

The Copenhagen accord provides a global consensus on the need to limit the rise in global average temperatures to no more than 2o Celsius. Consequently, there will likely be a long-term global emissions target set to 40-60% reductions in emissions from 1990 levels by 2050. On this basis, the 2010 EPI used a median target of 50% reductions below 1990 levels. The target is set to reflect how far a nation is from the long-term emissions reduction goal necessary to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, according to the judgment of the scientific community. This general target is incorporated into two of the three climate change indicators to focus climate change performance on long-term management goals.

Data Gaps and Deficiencies

Anthropogenic emissions of GHGs are the root of the climate change problem and are the core of the EPI indicators representing environmental performance for climate change. Emissions of GHGs have an impact on climate change regardless of where they are emitted, making emissions reductions in China as valuable as those in the United States. Because of the predicted severe and nearly ubiquitous impacts of GHGs, mitigation and monitoring of sectoral performances must occur at an international level with broad participation.

Despite the significant attention given to the issue of climate change, there are still major gaps in GHG inventories world-wide. Data availability varies by location and sector. Emissions data reporting from the industrial sector is widely available for most countries, although, even these data contain notable gaps. Though data on carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel combustion are gathered annually by several international agencies, data on other GHGs are still minimal.

Fortunately, GHG emissions monitoring and reporting are improving. The International Energy Agency (IEA) produces annual data on carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel combustion within each country, which are considered to be among the most reliable data. Data on other GHGs are reported every five years and provided to the IEA by national statistical offices in OECD countries, and collected from various sources in government and industry in non-OECD countries. Members of the UNFCCC self-report annual GHG emissions, but the accuracy depends upon the monitoring capacity of individual countries. In general, more countries and agencies are monitoring and compiling GHG emissions data, but the international body of data is far from sufficient to deconstruct the real drivers of climate change emissions within each country. The 2010 EPI uses IEA data, World Resource Institute’s CAIT database, which includes UNFCC reports, Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center data, the World Bank’s World Development Indicators, and information from the US Central Intelligence Agency.

In the future we would like to divide total GHG emissions into sectors in order to provide better insight into the performance of the economy. A particularly glaring example is transportation emissions, which make up 23% of global emissions from fossil fuels (OECD/ITF 2008). While total CO2 emissions from transportation are estimated, there is no international data on which to ground these numbers. See Box 4.10. More detail about which sectors are emitting what – including non-commercial energy consumption, transportation, agriculture, forestry, and waste disposal – would provide a better assessment of where and how climate change is being addressed in each country.

A major source of uncertainty is emissions from deforestation and changing land use. Emissions from this source were estimated to be 20-25% of the total annual GHG emissions worldwide (IPCC 2007 WGI), yet the data that exist are problematic. Attention through the UNFCCC reporting requirements and international programs like REDD have bolstered these measurements in recent years, but international calculations are too often unreliable (Box 4.8).
Improvements in data collection of GHG emissions can bolster future EPIs as well as the ability of policy makers to assess their own countries’ performance on climate change.

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Pesticide Regulation

Eliza Cava — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 20:10:47 +0000

Metrics/PesticideRegulation

Pesticides are a significant source of toxics in the environment, affecting both human and ecosystem health. Although newer pest control agents are often less toxic than earlier ones, pesticide-related problems remain, including the persistent use and mismanagement of toxic agents which remain in the environment beyond their intended usage as crop protection agents. Widespread use of agricultural chemicals can expose farm workers to acute levels of pesticide and the general population to low levels of pesticide residues on food. Acute exposure to pesticides has been linked to increases in headaches, fatigue, insomnia, dizziness, hand tremors, and other neurological symptoms. Pesticides also damage ecosystem health by killing beneficial insects, pollinators, and fauna.

Given the lack of pesticide use and impact data, the EPI measures Pesticide Regulation, a policy variable that tracks government attention to the issue. The Pesticide Regulation indicator is based on national participation in the Rotterdam Convention, which controls trade restriction and regulations for toxic chemicals, and the Stockholm convention, which bans the use of Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs). POPs are toxic pollutants that bioaccumulate and move long distances in the environment. Accordingly the Pesticide Regulation indicator also considers national efforts to ban the nine POPs which are relevant to agriculture: Aldrin, Chlordane, DDT, Dieldrin, Endrin, Heptachlor, Hexachlorobenzene, Mirex, and Toxaphene.

The two treaties and nine pollutants create a total of 11 measures; each assigned two points, for a total possible target score of 22. Countries receive the full 22 points if they have signed both conventions and submitted a national implementation plan, as well as banned the 9 POPs. If countries have only signed the convention, but submitted no implementation plan, they receive a score of “1” for that measure, and if they are not party to the convention they receive a score of “0”. A banned pesticide receives a score of “2,” a restricted pesticide a score of “1,” and a pesticide with no regulation receives a “0”. Since the 2008 EPI was published, new data has been made available for countries participating in the Stockholm and Rotterdam Conventions, but not for the status of banned chemicals.