India placed at bottom in EPI rankings, but ministry disproves it saying unscientific  

The recently released Environment Performance Index (EPI) 2022 has ranked India last among 180 countries that have been ranked.

The index was published recently by the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy and the Center for International Earth Science Information Network, Columbia University.

It used 40 performance indicators across 11 categories to judge countries on climate change performance, environmental health and ecosystem vitality.

With a score of 18.9, India’s 180th ranking comes after Pakistan, Bangladesh, Vietnam and Myanmar – the bottom five together make up the poorest performing countries for environmental health.

According to EPI, the country also scored low on rule of law, control of corruption and government effectiveness.

However, in response to EPI’s ranking for 2022, the Union environment ministry of India has disproved saying that some of the indicators it used are inferred and based on surmises and unscientific methods.

Forests and wetlands of the country are crucial carbon sinks but have not been factored in while computing the projected GHG emissions trajectory up to 2050 given by EPI 2022.

Historical data on the lowest emission trajectory has been ignored in the computation, it said while rejecting the analysis.

The ministry said the weight of the indicators in which India performed well has been reduced and the reasons for such change have not been explained in the report.

The indicators on water quality, water use efficiency, waste generation per capita which are closely linked to sustainable consumption and production are not included in the Index, the ministry said.

The index computes the extent of ecosystems but not their condition or productivity. It did not include indicators like agro biodiversity, soil health, food loss and waste even though they are important for developing countries with large agrarian populations.

India was ranked 168th in EPI-2020, with a score of 27.6. In EPI-2020, Denmark has been ranked first in environmental health and sustainability.