We all have pre-conceived ideas about what a sustainable and climate friendly country looks like, about the nations that must be doing well at fighting climate change and the places that definitely won't be. The thing is that in a lot of cases, we are probably quite wrong. There are a lot of different assessments of green credentials out there but one of the most reliable and well regarded is the annual Climate Change Performance Index, which ranks 58 countries according to 14 indicators, and taking a look at their report for 2021 throws up some interesting surprises in the rankings. While 58 countries might not sound like a huge percentage of the world, the nations included together account for almost 90% of greenhouse gas emissions. The top three places in the report are left empty to symbolise the fact that no country has been found to really be doing enough to prevent climate and there are no winners here. Coming it at fourth, fifth and sixth place are Sweden, the UK and Denmark. The Scandinavian countries might not come as a huge surprise, but the fact that the UK is in there, when, for example, Finland comes in at eleventh might be less expected by many people. As the CCPI 2021 report says "Even if all countries were as committed as the current frontrunners, it would still not be enough to prevent dangerous climate change" and that even those countries at the top of the table have “no reason to ease up” . Latvia does the best out of the Baltic States at 13th place (which is really 10th, don't forget), just two places above Lithuania in 15th. Estonia on the other hand is way down in 38th, five places below China which it might be surprising to notice isn't down at the tail end of the ranking but firmly rooted in the middle. <img src="https://ekodiena.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/climate-lines-baltics.png" alt="Chart of CCPI rankings" class="wp-image-2746" height="NaN" srcset="https://ekodiena.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/climate-lines-baltics.png 1024w, https://ekodiena.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/climate-lines-baltics-300x226.png 300w, https://ekodiena.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/climate-lines-baltics-200x150.png 200w, https://ekodiena.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/climate-lines-baltics-768x578.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /> Click the chart for a bigger version The bottom of the table is made up of Iran, Saudi Arabia, and in absolute last place, the United States. It is probably fair to point out that this data was published at the end of the Trump era and we'd all like to hope that as the new Biden government swiftly reverses some of the anti-environment policies of the previous administration things should improve a lot. You can find the whole Climate Change Performance Index list of country rankings, together with info about the ranking factors at the CCPI website .

How the Baltics are doing in the Climate Change Performance Index

Piri

It is again a bit surprising data. Some countries do better in one area like renewable energy others deal better with reducing emissions.

There are lots of factors for it as well. I kind of like CCPI because there is a factor of environmental policies.

I see that Lithuania went down this year. And Estonia should do a bit better.

Arvīds

Piri And Estonia should do a bit better.

It is a surprise to me too that Estonia is behind the Latvia and Lithuania in all of the four areas, and quite behind in the GHG emissions section. I wonder what they are doing differently that makes this so much worse.

Julie Brooks-Girskiene

These sort of things are always full of surprises, I expected the Netherlands to be up at the top somewhere.

Julie Brooks-Girskiene

Arvīds quite behind in the GHG emissions section. I wonder what they are doing differently that makes this so much worse.

Maybe they have more manufacturing industry of some kind?

Piri

Julie Brooks-Girskiene Maybe they have more manufacturing industry of some kind?

Actually they have oil shale and it is fossil fuels….

Arvīds

Piri Actually they have oil shale and it is fossil fuels….

In fact, they have a lot of it.

Estonia holds significant reserves of oil shale and its oil shale extraction industry is the most developed in the world. Oil shale represents approximately 70% of Estonian total primary energy supply. The production amounts to 176,544 terajoules (TJ), or 49,040 GWh per year, with 30,159 TJ exported to neighbouring energy markets

Treebeard

Where Sweden is now should be a baseline.

All countries should be aiming for this very quickly as a minimum and competing for space 1-3.

John

Treebeard competing for space 1-3

I find the starting the list from #4 thing a bit irritating. I get the point and wear they are implying but it's a chart of data, I want it to be clear and easy, and have the country with the highest score at#1.

Skylar

The point about the US is very true, I hope that they would be doing a lot better if the data was from today than it was during the Trump regime.

John

Skylar The point about the US is very true, I hope that they would be doing a lot better if the data was from today than it was during the Trump regime.

I think it's safe to say that the position of the US would be completely different, every part of their climate policy has changed. They might not be at the top just yet, but they definitely wouldn't be right at the bottom.

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