Good News Amid Doom: India Ranks 8 in Climate Change Performance Index 2023

Finding a spot among high performing countries in the Climate Change Performance Index 2023 (CCPI), India climbed two spots to rank eighth out of 63 nations.

(Photo: Kamran Akhter/The Quint)

Finding a spot among high performing countries in the Climate Change Performance Index 2023 (CCPI), India climbed two spots to rank eighth out of 63 nations.

(Photo: The Quint/Kamran Akhter)

As per the CCPI, the country earned a 'high' rating in the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions and Energy Use categories, with a 'medium' for Climate Policy and Renewable Energy.

(Photo: The Quint/Kamran Akhter)

"The country is on track to meet its 2030 emissions targets (compatible with a well-below-2°C scenario). However, the renewable energy pathway is not on track for the 2030 target," it noted.

(Photo: The Quint/Kamran Akhter)

The Key Highlights

Other key highlights from the CCPI include:

• The first three spots of the index remained empty, as no country no country performed well enough in all categories to achieve an overall high rating

• Denmark ranked fourth, followed by Sweden 

• India’s ranking in categories: In GHGs, it ranked at 9, at 24 in Renewable Energy, 9 in Energy Use and 8 on Climate Policy.

• India ranked at top in the grouping of top 10 emitter, followed by Germany and Japan at 2 and 3 positions of this grouping

• The worst performers in the overall ranking were Iran, Saudi Arabia and Kazakhstan. They ranked particularly poorly in renewables and heavily reliant on oil.

• Saudi Arabia was found to be the nation with the highest per capita GHG emissions among the G20 nations

What is the Climate Change Performance Index?

The CCPI, which uses a standardized framework to compare the climate performance of 59 countries and the EU, is an instrument to enable transparency in national and international climate politics.

The concerned nations account for 92 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions in totality.

Their climate protection performance is assessed in four categories: Greenhouse Gas Emissions (40 percent of the overall score), Renewable Energy (20 percent), Energy Use (20 percent), and Climate Policy (20 percent).