The German NGO Germanwatch just published its yearly Climate Protection Index. They took the opportunity to present it to media during the Cancún Summit and thus show what the state in climate politics is exactly while it stands in focus of public opinion.
The interesting fact is that the first three places in the index remain empty – the organization emphasizes by this that no country in the world (at least none of the 60 countries included in the index and responsible for about 90% of global greenhouse gas emissions) does enough to hold the temperature increase due to global warming down to 2 degrees above preindustrial levels.
The fourth (the first one occupied) place goes to Brazil, mainly because of its successful efforts to protect the Amazon rainforest from logging. At subsequent places are Sweden, Norway and Germany, the country where I’m living. Poland, my country of origin, occupies rank 55 – exactly between the two most problematic cases, the US and China.
The latter two are especially problematic because they are responsible for some 40 per cent of the global carbon emissions – and both haven’t made any progress in climate change policy. They actually slipped one (China) or two (US) places in the index.
So, I suppose, we’ve got a problem.
The Sceptical Economist 