Annually, for the past 18 years, Germanwatch, New Climate Institute and CAN International have released the CCPI at the COP. ECO appreciates the wide participatory process of 450 experts from the 59 countries and the EU, representing more than 90% of all GHG emissions.
CCPI looks at four indicators, each of which has a set of sub-indicators, when rating a country’s performance: (1) GHG emissions (per capita) and trends (40% of the rating using 2021 data); (2) Renewable Energy; (3) Energy Consumption (efficiency); and (4) National Climate Policy (data for 2022 and which each represent 20% of the overall rating).
ECO notes that much like in last year’s assessment, no country raised climate ambition progressively enough to be ranked between 1 and 3. Basically, countries did not perform well in ANY of the categories the CCPI considers in awarding the highest rankings of countries.
Denmark and Sweden are at the top (4th and 5th). The European Union is only 19th, while several developing countries scored better, like Chile (6), India (8), Morocco (7), and the Philippines (12). The biggest surprises this year were: Estonia, jumping up 23 places (9), Belgium +10 (39), the Philippines +11, France -11 (28), Thailand -11 (42), and China -13 (51), which is now in the red zone thanks to its worsening coal addiction.
In addition to China; Japan, USA, Hungary, Poland, Australia, Malaysia, Chinese Taiwan, Canada, Russia, South Korea, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia and Iran, in this order, are all in the red ‘climate despair’ zone, with rankings between 50 and 63.
Quite logically, these 14 climate losers include 9 out of the 16 largest fossil fuel producers, collectively mining about 70% of all fossil fuels globally. All of them, except for Canada, have low or very low Renewable Energy shares.
ECO hopes that in the coming years CCPI sees some of the results from recent implementation of clean energy policies in Australia, China, Brazil, the EU and the USA. ECO, however, sees no light at the end of the tunnel for the Republic of Korea (60) the only country globally that reduced its renewable target earlier this year, as well as Saudi Arabia and Iran.
ECO urges all countries to adopt ambitious climate policy in line with a 1.5°C pathway, which includes: leaving fossil fuels in the ground; removing obstacles for a pathway to 100% renewables; pursuing radical energy efficiency; and providing and guiding public and private finance for clean energy with strong legislation and not voluntary commitments.