India ranked 176th out of 177 countries in the 2026 Environment Performance Index, a global assessment of environmental health, ecosystem vitality and climate change mitigation.
It also ranked last among the eight South Asian countries assessed, behind Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Maldives and Bangladesh.
India scored 22.4 out of 100, compared with 74.79 for Estonia, the highest-ranked country in the index.
Compiled every two years by researchers from Yale and Columbia universities and other institutions, the Environment Performance Index evaluated 177 countries.
The countries were assessed across 47 indicators covering 12 categories and three broad policy objectives: environmental health, ecosystem vitality and climate change mitigation.
India ranked 174th in environmental health, 171st in ecosystem vitality and 130th in climate change mitigation.
“India, whose per-capita emissions remain relatively low but are growing rapidly, faces an acute development-versus-pollution tension as hundreds of millions of people gain access to modern energy services but at the price of serious urban air pollution and spiking [green house gas] emissions,” the report noted.
Several of India’s air quality indicators in the last 10 years, including the burden of death and disease from exposure to fine particulate matter and exposure to carbon monoxide and sulphur dioxide, showed negative values.
The Environment Performance Index researchers said that India’s weak performance reflected critical air quality problems, continued reliance on coal-fired power and inadequate biodiversity protections.
Despite ranking near the bottom, India recorded an improvement over the past decade under the index’s measure of 10-year change. Its score on this metric was +7.47.
According to Zachary Wendling, the index’s research director, applying the current methodology to historical data shows that India’s overall performance has improved over time, The Wire reported.
While emissions remain high, the rate of increase of some pollutants, including sulphur dioxide and nitrous oxides, has slowed, he told The Wire. “While emissions of carbon dioxide and some other greenhouse gases are still too high and rising, they are not rising as quickly as they have in the past,” he was quoted as saying.
When the 2022 Environment Performance Index ranked India last among 180 countries, the Union environment ministry had said that it “does not accept” the index’s analysis and conclusions, The Wire reported. It cited changes in methodology and alleged that the index was based on “surmises and unscientific methods”.
The ministry also said the index failed to account for India’s historically low per-capita emissions and objected to changes in the weighting of environmental indicators, the news outlet reported.
Responding to the criticism, the Environment Performance Index’s lead scientist told The Wire that the rankings have always been based on the current state of environmental conditions rather than historical emissions or policy intentions.
Written by Tanya Shrivastava. Edited by Sara Varghese.
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