Bangladesh becomes the second worst country in curbing environmental pollution, according to a global Environmental Performance Index (EPI) 2018 ranking.
Bangladesh ranked 179th among 180 countries in the EPI ranking, which was published on January 24 on the sidelines of the annual World Economic Forum (WEF) meet.
"India and Bangladesh come in near the bottom of the rankings, with Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Nepal rounding out the bottom five," said the latest biennial report by the Yale and Columbia universities in collaboration with the WEF.
At the bottom of the 2018 EPI rankings Bangladesh scored 29.56, followed by India 30.57, Nepal 31 and Burundi with 27.43.
“Low scores on the EPI are indicative of the need for national sustainability efforts on a number of fronts, especially cleaning up air quality, protecting biodiversity, and reducing GHG emissions,” the report said.
The report added that the low scores in some countries can be attributed to weak governance.
Switzerland emerged the leading country in overall environmental performance with a score of 87.42. France, Denmark, Malta and Sweden were in the top five while the United States made it to the 27th rank.
As regards air quality, India scored a mere 5.75, China 14.39 and Pakistan 15.69, and these “face a public health crisis that demands urgent attention,” according to the report released on Tuesday.
To formulate EPI, several key factors are taken into consideration. A total of 24 indicators were evaluated and grouped into ten issues: air quality, water and sanitation, heavy metals, biodiversity and habitat, forests, fisheries, climate and energy, air pollution, water resources, and agriculture.
