Nepal ranks top in forest performance, worst in air quality
Nepal is ranked top in the performance in forest sector but is among three worst performing countries in the world in term of air quality with regard to effects on human health, a new study said.
The Environment Performance Index (EPI) ranking—prepared by the Yale Centre for Environmental Law and Policy, Yale University and Centre for International Earth Science Information Network and Columbia University—has listed Nepal in the third last position among 132 countries scoring 18 out of 100 points provided for air pollution, reports The Kathmandu Post daily referring the study report.
Air pollution in Kathmandu (file photo)
The bottom five countries in the rankings from Asia are China (128), Pakistan (129), Bangladesh (131) and India (132) and Nepal. Particulate matter and indoor air pollution are taken as indicators for the air pollution with regard to human health.
Switzerland ranks top with 76.69 score while Nepal ranked 38th scoring 57.97 in the EPI analysis. The EPI ranks countries on 22 performance indicators spanning ten policy categories reflecting facets of both environmental public health and ecosystem vitality.
The categories are environmental burden of disease, water (effects on human health), air pollution (effects on human health), air pollution (ecosystem effects), water resources (ecosystem effects), biodiversity and habitat, forestry, fisheries, agriculture and climate change.
However, the pilot trend EPI, which ranks countries on the change in their environmental performance in terms of environment health and vitality, ranks Nepal 14th among the South Asian countries.
Meanwhile there is good news as well, Nepal ranked top in the performance in forest sector. The country’s performance fared well in other sectors like climate change, air with the regard to ecosystem effects, agriculture, bio diversity and habitat and water resources with regard to ecosystem effects.
The Index report was presented at the World Economic Forum held in Davos, Switzerland on January 25-29. The EPI ranking has been carried out every two years since 2006.
According to the report, the governments still struggle to demonstrate improved environmental performance even twenty years after the Rio Earth Summit, the first international earth summit organised to meet the urgent needs of environmental degradation by the world leaders.
