Dimitris Kouimtsidis
SPAIN has ranked 14th on the list of greenest countries in the world, while the UK came in at an impressive fourth.
The Environmental Performance Index (EPI) evaluates and ranks 180 countries worldwide on 32 performance indicators across 11 categories regarding environmental health and ecosystem vitality.
The EPI has been conducting this report for 22 consecutive years and has become the world’s top framework for global environmental policy analysis.
Each country gets a score out of 100 across 11 categories such as climate change, air quality and waste management.
Spain has ranked in 14th place, with an average score of 74.3.
This comes as Spain announced it will ban the sale of petrol and diesel cars as part of an ambitious action plan against climate change.
The UK on the other hand has ranked fourth, with an average score of 81.3, only behind Denmark, Luxembourg and Switzerland.
Denmark is the greenest country worldwide according to the EPI, with an average score of 82.5.
The two most populated countries worldwide have ranked really far down the list, with China in 120th place and India in 169th.
Both of these countries have historically bad results with air quality due to pollution, with overpopulation being a significant factor.
In last place is Liberia, with an average score of only 22.6.
There is a clear correlation between unstable governments and poor EPI performance, with the bottom third of the list containing mainly African and South-East Asian countries.
The effects of the coronavirus pandemic were too recent to be included in the 2020 report, but will most likely be a part of the next one.
