Press Release Germanwatch, NewClimate Institute, and Climate Action Network (CAN)

Climate Change Performance Index 2018

  • Global energy transition taking up speed – but no country is doing enough
  • Countries have to strengthen targets and implementation
  • Sweden, Morocco, Norway leading the tableau – USA in the free fall

Bonn (November 15th, 2017): After a decade of rapid growth, we see a strong decrease in the growth rates of global CO2 emissions over the past years, sending signals for a decarbonisation of the global energy system. The Climate Change Performance Index 2018 (CCPI) confirms these developments in Greenhouse-Gas-emissions (GHG), renewable energies and energy use for some countries but also still clearly shows a current general lack of ambitious targets and sufficient implementation for a Paris-compatible pathway. Jan Burck, co-author of the CCPI at Germanwatch, comments: “We see a strong commitment to the global climate targets of the Paris Agreement in international climate diplomacy. The countries now have to deliver specific measures breaking down their commitments to a sectoral level.”

“We continue to see very positive developments regarding renewables and energy efficiency”, Stephan Singer from the Climate Action Network (CAN) and co-publisher of the CCPI, adds. “The data show encouraging growth in renewable energy, ever cheaper prices for solar and wind energy, and successes in saving energy in many countries. This was responsible for stabilising global energy CO2 emissions in the last three years. But progress is achieved much too slow for a fully renewable energy based world economy in a few decades, because growing oil and gas consumption is higher than the welcomed reduction in coal use”.

Key results of the CCPI 2018

Since no country is on a Paris-compatible path yet, the top three of the CCPI 2018 are still unoccupied.

“The gap in mid- and long-term ambition of the evaluated countries is still too high. In terms of GHG emissions, we see better 2030 targets in countries like Norway or India; comparably good targets for renewable energy, we see in for example Norway, Sweden or New Zealand. No country has a particularly outstanding energy efficiency target. Saudi Arabia and the United States generally have to drastically raise their 2030 ambition”, Prof. Niklas Höhne from the NewClimate Institute, co-author of the CCPI, explains.

With comparably positive developments in renewables and per capita emissions, Sweden ranks 4th in this year’s CCPI – following the empty top three. A relatively low emissions level and a very high trend in renewable energy are reasons for Lithuania’s 5th rank. Profiting from a good policy evaluation and relatively high 2030 targets, Morocco lands on position six, followed by Norway. India ranks 14th with a still low level of per capita emissions and energy use.  China on the contrary, with its high emissions and a growing energy use over the past five years, still ranks 41st. But better placements in the next years can be expected, since national experts highlighted the country has implemented policies to phase out coal capacity as well as promoting renewables and electric mobility.

Germany (rank 22), the co-host country for Fiji’s COP 23 Presidency, lands in the midfield of the CCPI 2018. The country has put a lot of effort into international climate diplomacy and globally committing to climate action. “Germany’s mid- and long-term targets are relatively strong but the last government failed on delivering concreate measures to effectively reduce emissions domestically. Germany shows a relatively good development of renewable energy in the electricity sector but the country is not at all on track to meet its 2020 target. It is absolutely crucial that the currently ongoing coalition negotiations come to an agreement on a coal phase out and getting a transition in the transport sector started”, Burck says.

Wendel Trio, Director of Climate Action Network (CAN) Europe, comments on the performance of the EU, which was evaluated in the CCPI 2018 for the first time: “The report reveals that the EU vows commitment to the Paris Agreement, but avoids real climate action at home. The EU needs to translate words into action and commit to deeper emission cuts than currently foreseen. Current discussions on the new clean energy policies and the EU budget offer excellent opportunities to increase ambition of the bloc’s climate action.”

Having declared its withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and dismantled major climate legislation of the previous government, the USA (rank 56) finds itself in the bottom five of the ranking. Besides, a very low policy evaluation, the country’s emissions level and energy use are considerably too high to be in line with a well-below 2°C pathway. The bottom three of the index is formed by Korea (rank 58), Iran (rank 59) and Saudi Arabia (rank 60), all of which are showing hardly any progress or ambition in reducing its emissions and energy use.

About the Climate Change Performance Index 2018, developed by Germanwatch and the NewClimate Institute:

The Climate Change Performance Index by Germanwatch and the NewClimate Institute is a ranking of the 56 countries and the EU, together responsible for about 90% of global GHG emissions. The methodology was improved in for the 2018 edition. The four categories examined are: emissions (40%), renewable energy (20%), energy use (20%) and climate policy (20%). The latter is based on expert assessments by NGOs and think tanks from the respective countries. One of the major achievements is that the CCPI now also evaluates to what extent the respective countries are taking adequate action within the categories emissions, renewables and energy use to being on track towards the global Paris-goal of limiting global warming to well below 2°C.

 

Annex: Press contacts

About 300 climate experts contributed to this year’s edition of the Climate Change Performance Index with their evaluation of national climate policies. The following agreed to be listed as a press contact for their country:

Country Name Organization Email
Algeria Sofiane Benadjila Independent Consultant sofbenadjila@hotmail.fr
Algeria Brahim Haddad Researcher mecanique25@hotmail.com
Algeria Radia Louz Independent Consultant radialouz@outlook.fr
Argentina Marisa Young Fundation Agreste eventos@fundacionagreste.org.ar
Argentina Juan Pablo Olsson 350.org juanpablo@350.org
Argentina Roque Pedace FoE roque.pedace@gmail.com
Australia Toby Halligan ACF Toby_Halligan@acf.org.au
Australia Simon Black GPAP simon.black@greenpeace.org
Austria Johannes Wahlmüller GLOBAL 2000 johannes.wahlmueller@global2000.at
Austria Adam Pawloff Greenpeace adam.pawloff@greenpeace.org
Belarus Dr. Alexandre Grebenkov United Nations Development Progarmme alexandre.grebenkov@undp.org
Belarus Rak Uladzimir Center for Environmental Solutions uladzimir.rak@gmail.com
Brazil William Wills Eos Consulting wills@eos.eco.br
Brazil Shigueo Watanabe Jr CO2 Consulting shigueo.watanabe@co2consulting.com.br
Brazil Tiago Reis IPAM tiago.reis@ipam.org.br
Bulgaria Antoaneta Yotova CAC Bulgaria toniyotova@gmail.com
China Jiaqiao Lin REEI linjiaqiao@reei.org.cn
China Mingde Cao China University of Political Science and Law mingde-cao@vip.163.com
Chinese Taipei Gloria Kuang-Jung Hsu Taiwan Environmental Protection Union kjhsu@ntu.edu.tw
Cyprus Georgia Shoshilou Federation of Environmental Organizations info@oikologiafeeo.org
Czech Republic Karel Polanecký Hnutí DUHA karel.polanecky@hnutiduha.cz
EU Wendel Trio CAN Europe wendel@caneurope.org
Germany Malte Hentschke Klima-Allianz malte.hentschke@klima-allianz.de
Germany Sebastian Scholz NABU Sebastian.Scholz@nabu.de
Germany Jan Kowalzig Oxfam jkowalzig@oxfam.de
Germany Ann-Kathrin Schneider BUND AnnKathrin.Schneider@bund.net
Greece Anthimos Chatzivasileiou WWF a.chatzivasileiou@wwf.gr
Greece Dimitis Ibrahim Greenpeace dimitris.ibrahim@greenpeace.org
Hungary Greenpeace info.hu@greenpeace.org
Hungary Béla Munkácsy Environmental Planning and Education Network munkacsy.bela@gmail.com
India Ajita Tiwari Laya, INECC ajitanjay@gmail.com
India Sanjay Vashist CANSA/HBF sanjayvashist@gmail.com
India Shankar Sharma shankar.sharma2005@gmail.com  
Indonesia Almo Pradana WRI almo.pradana@wri.org
Ireland Oisin Coghlan Stop Climate Chaos Coalition oisin@foe.ie
Italy Mauro Albrizio Legambiente albriziom@gmail.com
Italy Stefano Caserini Italian Climate Network stefano.caserini@gmail.com
Latvia Janis Brizga Green Liberty Latvia janis@zalabriviba.lv
Lithuania Inga Konstantinavičiūtė Lithuanian Energy Institute inga.konstantinaviciute@lei.lt
Mexico Jorge Villarreal ICM jorge.villarreal@iniciativaclimatica.org
Mexico Ninel Escobar WWF nescobar@wwfmex.org
Mexico Sandra Guzmán GFLAC sandra.lunag83@gmail.com
Morocco Touria Barradi Free expert consultant soraya.barradi@gmail.com
Netherlands Sible Schöne HIER sible@hier.nu
Netherlands Dian Phylipsen SQ Consult d.phylipsen@sqconsult.com
New Zealand Louisa McKerrow WWF lmckerrow@wwf.org.nz
Norway Silje Lundberg FoE sal@naturvernforbundet.no
Norway Kåre Gunnar Fløystad ZERO kare.gunnar.floystad@zero.no
Norway Ida Thomassen The Future in our Hands (FIOH) ida@framtiden.no
Poland Andrzej Ancygier Climate Analytics andrzej.ancygier@climateanalytics.org
Poland Andrzej Kassenberg ISD a.kassenberg@ine-isd.org.pl
Poland Aleksander Śniegocki WISE Europa aleksander.sniegocki@wise-europa.eu
Poland Krzystzof Księżopolski Warsaw Institute kmksiezopolski@uw.edu.pl
Poland Krzystzof Jedrzejewski Polish Climate Coalition k.jedrzejewski@koalicjaklimatyczna.org
Portugal João Branco Quercus
Portugal Francisco Ferreira ZERO francisco.ferreira@zero.ong
Romania Lavinia Andrei Terra Mileniul III lavinia.andrei@terramileniultrei.ro
Romania Ioana Ciuta Bankwatch ioana.ciuta@bankwatch.org
Russian Federation Alexey Kokorin WWF akokorin@wwf.ru
Russian Federation Oleg Pluzhnikov Business Russia olegplug@bk.ru
Russian Federation Michael Yulkin RSPP yulkin.ma@gmail.com
Russian Federation Vladimir Chuprov Greenpeace vladimir.tchouprov@greenpeace.org
Slovenia Barbara Kvac Focus barbara@focus.si
Spain Hector de Prado FoE sosclima@tierra.org
Spain Josep Puig S. and T. for a Non Nuclear Future gctpfnn@energiasostenible.org
Spain David Howell SEO Birdlife dhowell@seo.org
Switzerland Georg Klingler Greenpeace georg.klingler@greenpeace.org
Switzerland Patrick Hofstetter WWF Patrick.Hofstetter@wwf.ch
Thailand Tara Buakamsri GP Southeast Asia tara.buakamsri@greenpeace.org
Ukraine Oleg Savitsky Independent Consultant olehsavitskyi@gmail.com
Ukraine Andrii Zhelieznyi NECU ferum@necu.org.ua
Ukraine Oksana Aliieva HBS Kiew Oksana.Aliieva@ua.boell.org
United Kingdom Dustin Benton Green Alliance dbenton@green-alliance.org.uk
United States Alexander Ochs SD Strategies ochs@sd-strategies.com
United States Rachel Cleetus Union of Concerned Scientists RCleetus@ucsusa.org
United States Basav Sen SEEN basav@ips-dc.org
United States Christoph v. Friedeburg Independent Consultant cvfriede@yahoo.com