Bali Island, Indonesia - Sweden and Germany do the most to protect the climate while Saudi Arabia and the United States do the least, according to a report released by a German environmental group Friday at the UN climate conference in Bali. Germanwatch compared the climate protection performance of 56 countries responsible for 90 per cent of energy-related carbon dioxide emissions for the Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI).
Sweden kept its top spot from last year as the country doing the most to protect the climate, followed by Germany which earned the second ranking even before a 14-point plan was unveiled Wednesday to meet its target of a 36 per cent cut in greenhouse gases by 2020 compared with 1990 levels.
Germany's initiatives with the European Union and at the G-8 summit earned the country political points, said Jan Burck of Germanwatch in Bali.
Germany replaced Britain, which fell down to seventh position on the index. Iceland ranked third.
Australia slipped to 54th from 47th last year, partly due to increasing its energy-related emissions by 42 per cent between 1990 and 2005 and because its policy has "deviated from the necessary reduction targets as stated in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change after the last 11 years of John Howard9s presidency."
The environment group was optimistic that Australia would move up in the rankings next year, as newly-elected Prime Minister Kevin Rudd ratified the Kyoto Protocol on cutting greenhouse gases in one of his first acts in office.
However, Germanwatch warned that even high-ranking countries could not sit back and relax.
"The results illustrate that even if all countries engaged in the same manner, current efforts would still be insufficient to prevent dangerous climate change," said the report.
Germanwatch evaluates per-capita emissions trends, a country's energy-related CO2 emissions and the country's climate policy for the rankings.
