Countries Rated for Environmental Performance in New Report. Press Release, Yale, January 28, 2010. "Iceland leads the world in addressing pollution control and natural resource management challenges, according to the 2010 Environmental Performance Index (EPI) produced by a team of environmental experts at Yale University and Columbia University. This is the third edition of the EPI, which has been revisited biannually since 2006. Released on January 28 at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2010, the EPI ranks 163 countries on their performance across 25 metrics aggregated into ten categories including: environmental health, air quality, water resource management, biodiversity and habitat, forestry, fisheries, agriculture, and climate change.
"Iceland's top-notch performance derives from its high scores on environmental public health, controlling greenhouse gas emissions, and reforestation. Other top performers include Switzerland, Costa Rica, Sweden, and Norway -- all of which have made substantial investments in environmental infrastructure, pollution control, and policies designed to move toward long-term sustainability. Occupying the bottom five positions are Togo, Angola, Mauritania, the Central African Republic, and Sierra Leone -- impoverished countries that lack basic environmental amenities and policy capacity. The United States places 61st in the 2010 EPI, with strong results on some issues, such as provision of safe drinking water and forest sustainability, and weak performance on other issues including greenhouse gas emissions and several aspects of local air pollution. This ranking puts the United States significantly behind other industrialized nations like the United Kingdom (14th), Germany (17th), and Japan (20th)...The United States' ranking does not reflect the recent policy activities of the Obama Administration, as the 2010 EPI builds on data from before 2009."
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