India Falls To Last Spot In Environmental Performance Index; Centre Deems It 'Unscientific & Biased'

India has fallen to the last spot among 180 countries within 40 performance indicators in the 2022 Environmental Performance Index (EPI). The combined analysis by researchers of Yale and Columbia University was deemed 'unscientific' and 'biased' in its indicators by the Indian Union Environment Ministry.

India was ranked the lowest with just 18.9 points, with Denmark being the top ranker with 77.9 points.

Centre's Rebuttal

The EPI has claimed that India has prioritised economic development over environmental development, adding that "With markedly poor air quality and quickly rising greenhouse gas emissions, India, for the first time, comes in at the very bottom of country rankings," as reported by Hindustan Times.

As a rebuttal, the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) has issued a statement claiming that new indicators have been added to the index, which does not explain or assess accurate change. Giving an example of the Projected GHG Emissions levels in 2050, a new indicator in the Climate Policy objective, they alleged that it is calculated as an average rate of emission change in the past ten years, instead of actual long term modelling, renewable energy capacity and usage, added carbon usage, and the overall energy efficiency of countries as reported by The Indian Express.

The ministry added that the presence of forests and wetlands, which are "crucial carbon sinks", have not been assessed while calculating the Projected GHG emissions, while the indicators where India performed well have been reduced in weightage, the reasons for which have not been explained either.

The EPI Indicators

The EPI, which was released on May 31, marks the countries based on 40 performance indicators that can assess the state of sustainability and policies in each country. The indicators include environmental public health, biodiversity, climate change, and ecosystem vitality, among others, as reported by Mint.

Ravi Chellam, the CEO of the Metastring Foundation and Coordinator of the Biodiversity Collaborative, said that it all depends on the approach a country takes and that "destroying the environment and nature in the name of 'development' should no longer be the path, whatever might be the justification."

However, the statement by the ministry also added that the composition of the index has barely taken into account the principle of "common but differentiated responsibility", that is, the countries will take climate action according to their circumstances and situation, emphasising that India has achieved their target of 40% of non-fossil fuel-based sourced installed electricity capacity nine years prior to 2030, promised at the Paris Agreement.

The ministry insisted that no indicator in the index talks about renewable energy and process optimisation, saying that "the selection of indicators is biased and incomplete."

Scepticism Toward EPI

Independent experts have also chimed in with their scepticism toward the EPI. Chandra Bhushan, an environmentalist and the CEO of iForest Global, has expressed that all these rankings are subjective, and they use indicators to suit their worldview. Comparing EPI and Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI), formulated by Germanwatch and CAN International, he says, "for example, India will rank high if one uses per capita GHG emissions. But if one uses total GHG emissions, India will rank low."

Ulka Kelkar, the director of the Climate Program at World Resources Institute (WRI), emphasised that only one per cent weight of the 40 indicators is given to per capita emissions, which reduces the scaling for country size.

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