Mending Our Ways?

• Author: Zomer, Alisa
• Position: WORLD WATCHER - Environmental performance index

THE ENVIRONMENTAL PERFORMANCE INDEX, a collaborative initiative that evaluates how 180 countries protect ecosystems and human health, draws out trends and highlights data gaps in priority areas, including air quality, water management, and climate change. It indicates that there is cause for both optimism and serious concern. The world's nations have expanded access to water and sanitation while creating more protected areas than ever before, yet countries have failed to reverse degradation of air quality and decline in fisheries, the report finds.

Increased access to water and sanitation stands out as a major success story: concerted efforts to develop clean drinking water and sewage infrastructure have reduced deaths significantly from waterborne diseases. The number of people who lack access to clean water nearly has been cut in half since 2000, though at 550,000,000, or around eight percent of the world's population, there still is much room for improvement. The world's nations also show strong commitments to habitat preservation, and countries now are within striking distance of international targets for terrestrial and marine habitat protection.

Yet, in other areas, environmental progress has stalled, and some issues have shown troubling declines. Twenty-three percent of countries lack any kind of wastewater treatment. The world's fisheries are in a dire state, with a majority of fish stocks at risk of collapse. Air pollution has worsened, accounting for 10% of all deaths, compared with two percent claimed by foul water. More than 3,500,-000,000 people--half of the world's population--live in nations with unsafe levels of air pollution.

Now in its second decade, EPI provides a diagnostic tool for policymakers to evaluate and improve performance toward environmental goals. EPI is produced biennially by researchers at Yale and Columbia universities, in collaboration with the World Economic Forum.

"While many environmental problems are the result of industrialization, our findings show that both poor and wealthy nations suffer from serious air pollution," says lead author Angel Hsu, assistant professor at Yale-National University of Singapore College and the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies.

Adds EPI cocreator Kim Samuel, professor of practice at McGill University's Institute for the Study of International Development. "EPI sends a clear signal to policymakers on the state of their...