Seychelles barely scrapes through in Environmental Performance Index
WHERE ARE WE GOING WRONG?
We tend to take great pride in world rankings but how often do we analyse what they mean?Seychelles has just been ranked first in sub-Saharan Africa in the Environmental Performance Index, but 38th out of 180 in the world is not something we should be proud about.
Even more so that our score out of 100 is 58.2 –and that’s for a country that has always taken great pride in our Environment achievements.
In the 2020 EPI, a biennial scorecard of national environmental performance on a range of sustainability issues, Seychelles ranked 38th with a score of 58.2 out of 100, performing above the regional and world average in almost all indicators. So while it’s a strong performance south of the Sahara, we really need to be looking at where we can improve the scores and most certainly take some lessons from Denmark, Luxembourg and Switzerland which rank in the top 3 countries as a result of strong results across most issues and lead-ing commitments and outcomes with regards to climate change mitigation.
Over the years the EPI report has become the premier metrics framework for global environmental policy analysis, ranking 180 countries on 32 performance indicators across 11 issue categories covering environmental health and ecosystem vitality. The 2020 EPI features new metrics that gauge waste management, carbon dioxide emissions from land cover change, and emissions of fluorinated gases; all important drivers of climate change.
