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26 january 2001
davos forum's environmental
sustainability index "deeply flawed"
Business fat-cats may be reassured, but
environmentalists were dismayed today by an
update of the ëEnvironmental Sustainability
Indexí (developed by World Economic Forum
spin-off group, the Global Leaders for
Tomorrowí) released at the World Economic
Forum this morning. The Index ranks countries
according to their alleged ability to achieve
economic growth and environmental
sustainability together.
The index ranks rich Northern nations
highly, and poor developing countries very
badly. But Friends of the Earth International
today accused the Indexís developers of
perpetrating ëideological greenwashí. An
analysis of the index by Friends of the Earth
reveals that the apparent good performance of
countries like the USA is because its
overwhelming contribution to global problems
like climate change (22% of global emissions
from 5% of the planetís population) is
treated as minimal in the weighting, where
domestic issues, and in particular, crude
measures of social and institutional
capacity.
On the other hand, the poor performance of
Bangladesh in the Index, stems in part from
its susceptibility to climate disasters ñ
which have been caused largely by the
profligacy of richer nations. Zambia's low
score is in part due to a poor performance on
public health - yet it has been forced to cut
public health spending by externally imposed
structural adjustment policies.
To highlight the arbitrary and flawed
assumptions of the Index, Friends of the
Earth has re-ranked the top 10 and bottom 10
countries in the Index, according to their
performance on five key environmental issues
- including climate change, and resource
depletion - and their Human Development Index
ranking [see notes below]. This entirely
reverses the ranking of the index -raising
Uganda from eighteenth to first in this
group, and dropping Norway from first to
sixteenth. The USA drops from ninth to
fourteenth.
Duncan McLaren of Friends of the Earth
International said:
"This so-called 'Environmental
Sustainability Index' is a product of
ideological greenwash. It sums up the
wishful thinking of the World Economic
Forum that more economic globalisation will
solve the world's problems."
Contact:
Duncan McLaren 00-44-749-192 0469 (In
Davos)
Tony Juniper 00-44-771-284 3207 (In
Davos)
FOE press office 00-44-7566 1649
Note for editors:
FoE's re-analysis uses data on forest
protection (% of national forests protected),
marine fish catch, paper consumption, carbon
dioxide emissions and pesticide use per
hectare - it combines these with the
country's Human Development Index ranking
(which in turn incorporates economic growth,
infant mortality and literacy). For a table
of rankings, contact us on the above numbers
(or Simon Bullock on 00-44-20-7490 1555).
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