Y is for Yale Ranking, Yellow Dust & Yudhoyono
Y is for Yale Ranking, Yellow Dust & Yudhoyono
Yank ranking is where we show the key findings of the 2014 Environmental Performance Index and hopefully see some improvements for Asian countries showing up soon. Singapore happily comes in at number 4, immediately after Australia, which could drop back with its back tracking on emissions reductions. Surprisingly, Japan, Korea and Taiwan are not showing up as well as they should, while China and India didn’t make it into the top 100. Former Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has a big new job with the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) – http://www.eco-business.com/news/green-growth-no-brainer-yudhoyono/ , while China, South Korea and Japan are getting together to deal with air pollution, including the dreaded “yellow dust”. Read More
Yank Ranking Global Scorecard
The world lags on some environmental issues, while demonstrating progress in others.
A “global scorecard’ provides first-time insight as to collective policy impacts on the major environmental issues of our time. Overall, improvements have been made in many of the categories of the Environmental Health objective, including Access to Drinking Water, Child Mortality, and Access to Sanitation, though Air Quality has declined. Declines and overall low scores are found in Air Quality, Fisheries, and Wastewater Treatment. While in most areas, trends suggest improvement, some primary issues like air quality and fisheries show distressing decline over the last decade.
The Environmental Health Index (EPI),developed at Yale and Columbia Universities, ranks countries across 20 environmental factors, including CO2 emission levels, use of renewable energy, and air quality.
The two objectives of the index are Environmental Health and Ecosystem Vitality.
Environmental Health measures the ‘protection of human health from environmental harm’.
While Ecosystem Vitality measures ‘ecosystem protection and resource management’.
These two objectives are further divided into nine categories that cover issues, including air quality, forests, fisheries, and climate and energy, among others.
Underlying the nine issue categories are 20 indicators based on data and statistics taken from the records of individual countries.
RANK COUNTRY SCORE (out of 100)
1. Switzerland 87.67
2. Luxembourg 83.29
3. Australia 82.40
4. Singapore 81.78
5. Czech Republic 81.47
6. Germany 80.47
7. Spain 79.79
8. Austria 78.32
9. Sweden 78.09
10. Norway 78.04
11. Netherlands 77.75
12. United Kingdom 77.35
13. Denmark 76.92
14. Iceland 76.50
15. Slovenia 76.43
16. New Zealand 76.41
17. Portugal 75.80
18. Finland 75.72
19. Ireland 74.67
20. Estonia 74.66
21. Slovakia 74.45
22. Italy 74.36
23. Greece 73.28
24. Canada 73.14
25. United Arab Emirates 72.91
26. Japan 72.35
27. France 71.05
28. Hungary 70.28
29. Chile 69.93
30. Poland 69.53
31. Serbia 69.13
32. Belarus 67.69
33. United States of America 67.52
34. Malta 67.42
35. Saudi Arabia 66.66
36. Belgium 66.61
37. Brunei Darussalam 66.49
38. Cyprus 66.23
39. Israel 65.78
40. Latvia 64.05
41. Bulgaria 64.01
42. Kuwait 63.94
43. South Korea 63.79
44. Qatar 63.03
45. Croatia 62.23
46. Taiwan 62.18
47. Tonga 61.68
48. Armenia 61.67
49. Lithuania 61.26
50. Egypt 61.11
51. Malaysia 59.31
52. Tunisia 58.99
53. Ecuador 58.54
54. Costa Rica 58.53
55. Jamaica 58.26
56. Mauritius 58.09
57. Venezuela 57.80
58. Panama 56.84
59. Kiribati 55.82
60. Jordan 55.78
61. Seychelles 55.56
62. Montenegro 55.52
63. Azerbaijan 55.47
64. Cuba 55.07
65. Mexico 55.03
66. Turkey 54.91
67. Albania 54.73
68. Syria 54.50
69. Sri Lanka 53.88
70. Uruguay 53.61
71. Suriname 53.57
72. South Africa 53.51
73. Russia 53.45
74. Moldova 53.36
75. Dominican Republic 53.24
76. Fiji 53.08
77. Brazil 52.97
78. Thailand 52.83
79. Trinidad and Tobago 52.28
80. Palau 51.96
81. Morocco 51.89
82. Bahrain 51.83
83. Iran 51.08
84. Kazakhstan 51.07
85. Colombia 50.77
86. Romania 50.52
87. Bolivia 50.48
88. Belize 50.46
89. Macedonia 50.41
90. Nicaragua 50.32
91. Lebanon 50.15
92. Algeria 50.08
93. Argentina 49.55
94. Zimbabwe 49.54
95. Ukraine 49.01
96. Antigua and Barbuda 48.89
97. Honduras 48.87
98. Guatemala 48.06
99. Oman 47.75
100. Botswana 47.60
Asia Pacific countries which didn’t make it into the top 100 include (in order of merit): Bhutan (103), Vanuatu (106), Mongolia (111), Indonesia (112), Philippines (114), China (118), Laos (127), Timor-Leste (132), Viet Nam (136), Nepal (139), Cambodia (145), Pakistan (148), Solomon Islands (152), India (155), Myanmar (164), Bangladesh (169) & Afghanistan (174).
Source: www.epi.yale.edu/epi/country-rankings
Where is the Yellow Dust coming from?
Yellow dust, yellow sand, yellow wind or Asian Dust is a seasonal meteorological phenomenon, according to Wikipedia, which affects much of East Asia sporadically during the springtime months.
The dust originates in the deserts of Mongolia, northern China and Kazakhstan where high-speed surface winds and intense dust storms kick up dense clouds of fine, dry soil particles. These clouds are then carried eastward by prevailing winds and pass over China, North and South Korea, and Japan, as well as parts of the Russian Far East.
Japan, South Korea and China are meeting regularly to deal collectively with trans-boundary air pollution problems, including measures to identify yellow dust’s travel routes and jointly study ocean pollution by garbage.
Japan, China, S. Korea to jointly tackle air pollution
JIJI Media (30 April 2014):
DAEGU, SOUTH KOREA – Japan, China and South Korea issued on Tuesday a joint statement stipulating their concerted efforts to resolve environmental issues such as the concentration of PM2.5 fine pollutants.
PM2.5 are tiny particles in the air that reduce visibility and cause the air to appear hazy when levels are elevated. Outdoor PM2.5 levels are most likely to be elevated on days with little or no wind or air mixing.
The communique was adopted by Environment Minister Nobuteru Ishihara, Chinese Vice Environmental Protection Minister Li Ganjie and South Korean Environment Minister Yoon Seong-kyu to wrap up their two-day talks in the South Korean city of Daegu.
According to the joint paper, the three countries will put their cooperation priority on six categories, including reducing air pollution and protecting water quality and the maritime environment, while promoting multilevel collaboration involving municipalities, companies and researchers.
As measures to tackle the PM2.5 and other air pollution problems, the three nations will introduce to each other successful methods and technologies to make the air cleaner.
They also agreed to exchange observation data on PM2.5 and other particles to identify yellow dust’s travel routes and jointly study ocean pollution by garbage.
On the second day of their meeting, Ishihara, Li and Yoon explained their respective countries’ environment protection policies.
Pointing out Japan is beefing up PM2.5 monitoring by improving measurement systems and devices, Ishihara stressed that cutting the pollutants’ emissions should be given top priority.
Li said he welcomes the three countries’ agreement on local-level cooperation in reducing air pollution.
At a press conference after the meeting, Ishihara said: “We were able to agree on specific cooperation measures against air pollution. Japan is willing to capitalize on its experience and technologies to reduce the pollution in the region.”
Ishihara met separately with Yoon Monday and agreed to exchange information on PM2.5 and bird influenza, but has failed to have individual talks with Li.
The three-way ministerial talks on environmental issues started in 1999. Amid heightened tensions over the Japan-administered Senkaku Islands, also claimed by China, Chinese Environment Protection Minister Zhou Shengxian skipped last May’s meeting in Kitakyushu, and was absent again this year.
The next talks will be held in China.
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