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? 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?
Britain and Germany top the environment standings, in no small part because they cut their greenhouse gas emissions by 10% during 1993–2003, the last ten years for which data are available, thanks to steady increases in gasoline taxes and strong support for wind and other renewable energy sources. Most rich countries’ emissions rose. Japan finishes last as a heavy subsidizer of its fishing industry and a big importer of tropical timber. It is also the only holdout among CDI countries, aside from landlocked Switzerland, against the UN Fisheries Agreement, which is meant to limit overfishing in international waters. The United States ratified that agreement but not the Kyoto Protocol, the most serious international effort yet to deal with climate change. That gap, along with high greenhouse gas emissions and low gas taxes, left the United States ahead of only Japan.