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A healthy environment is sometimes dismissed as a luxury for the rich. But people cannot live without a healthy environment. And poor nations have weaker infrastructures and fewer social services than rich countries, making the results of climate change all the more damaging. A study co-authored by CGD senior fellow David Wheeler predicts that a two-meter sea level rise would flood 90 million people out of their homes, many of them in the river deltas of Bangladesh, Egypt, and Vietnam.

The environment component looks at what rich countries are doing to reduce their disproportionate exploitation of the global commons. Are they reining in greenhouse gas emissions and fossil fuel production? How complicit are they in environmental destruction in developing countries, for example by importing commodities such as tropical timber? Do they subsidize fishing fleets that deplete fisheries off the coasts of such countries as Senegal and India?

Finland tops the environment standings. Its gasoline taxes are among the highest in the CDI, and its net greenhouse gas emissions are among the lowest, having declined significantly over the last ten years. Also near the top is the U.K., which has supported wind and other renewable energy sources. Although Norway has among the lowest greenhouse gas emissions rate per capita in the CDI, it produces the largest amount of fossil fuel per person. Australia finishes low as the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases per capita, while the United States is the only CDI country that has not ratified the Kyoto Protocol, the most serious international effort yet to deal with climate change. That gap, along with high greenhouse emissions and low gas taxes, puts the United States fourth from the bottom.

For more on environment, explore the climate change topic, related publications, and experts.