India rebutts EPI 2022, says it is extrapolated and based on surmises and unscientific methods

New Delhi:India on Wednesday rebutted the Environmental Performance index 2022, which ranked India at the bottom of the list of 80 countries, saying that the index has many indicators based on unfounded assumptions.

The Ministry of Environment Forest and Climate Change said that some of these indicators used for assessing performance are extrapolated and based on surmises and unscientific methods.

The index published recently by the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy and the Center for International Earth Science Information Network, Columbia University, used 40 performance indicators across 11 categories to judge countries on climate change performance, environmental health, and ecosystem vitality.

The EPI 2022 report says: “Based on the latest scientific insights and environmental data, India ranks at the bottom of all countries in the 2022 EPI, with low scores across a range of critical issues.”

“A new indicator in the Climate Policy objective is Projected GHG Emissions levels in 2050. This is computed based on the average rate of change in emission of the last 10 years instead of modelling that takes into account a longer time period, extent of renewable energy capacity and use, additional carbon sinks, energy efficiency etc. of respective countries” Ministry said in a statement.

Forests and wetlands of the country are crucial carbon sinks which have not been factored in while computing the projected GHG emissions trajectory upto 2050 given by EPI 2022.Historical data on the lowest emission trajectory has been ignored in the above computation, Ministry said while rejecting the report.

The Ministry claimed that the weight of indictors in which the country was performing well has been reduced and reasons for change in assignment of weights has not been explained in the report.

“The principle of equity is given very low weightage in the form of the indicators  like GHG emission per capita and GHG Emission intensity trend. The CBDR-RC principle is also barely reflected in the composition of the index” he said.

“The Copernicus air pollutant concentration data based on which DALYs are derived have higher uncertainty in regions with less extensive monitoring networks and emissions inventories. This limitation reduces the chance of accurate assessment of Air Quality” it explained.

The indicators on Water quality, Water use efficiency, Waste Generation per capita which are closely linked to Sustainable Consumption and Production are not included in the Index.

It said, the Index emphasizes the extent of Protected Areas rather than the quality of protection that they afford. Management Effectiveness Evaluation of Protected areas and eco-sensitive regions is not factored into the computation of Biodiversity Indices.

Criticising the methodology, the Ministry said the index computes the extent of ecosystems but not their condition or productivity. Efforts must be made to include metrics that truly capture ecosystem productivity such that regulatory, provisioning as well as cultural services provided by various ecosystems like forests, wetlands, croplands are assessed and reflected in performance.

“Indicators like Agro biodiversity, soil health, food loss and waste are not included even though they are important for developing countries with large agrarian populations” it said.

The EPI is a biennial index. It quantifies and numerically ranks the environmental performance of a country based on the three broad issues of ecosystem vitality, health, and climate policy.

It was first started in 2002 as the ESI, or the Environment Sustainability Index, as a collaboration between the World Economic Forum, the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy and the Columbia University Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN). The 2022 EPI is a joint project of the Yale Center and Columbia’s Earth Institute.

EPI in its website said: “The 2022 Environmental Performance Index (EPI) provides a data-driven summary of the state of sustainability around the world. Using 40 performance indicators across 11 issue categories, the EPI ranks 180 countries on climate change performance, environmental health, and ecosystem vitality. These indicators provide a gauge at a national scale of how close countries are to established environmental policy targets.