IRELAND: Sweden leads the world in terms of the action it is taking to combat global warming while Ireland has been ranked 33rd on a list of 56 countries, according to the latest "climate change performance index".
Compiled by Germanwatch and Climate Action Europe, two independent non-governmental agencies (NGOs) campaigning on the issue, the index ranks Britain in second place, followed by Denmark, Malta and Germany.
But Matthias Duwe, director of Climate Action Europe, said there were no real medal winners. "If climate change protection were an Olympic discipline, no country would make it to the medal ranks," he told a press briefing in Nairobi yesterday. The index compares the climate protection efforts of 56 developed and rapidly developing countries that together produce more than 90 per cent of global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. It was published for the first time earlier this year.
Christoph Bals, director of Germanwatch, said the index - which is based on a more qualitative analysis than crude figures for greenhouse gas emissions - "clearly shows that current efforts to stop dangerous climate change are insufficient".
However, he suggested that the seven European countries in the "top 10" together with three rapidly developing countries - Argentina, Brazil and India - "constitute significant potential for a new progressive climate change coalition".
Other major developing countries such as South Africa and China, both of which have high emissions but score well on their climate change policies, could support such an alliance to press for a global deal to cut emissions, Mr Bals said.
Ireland is languishing in the lower half of the list, with a score of minus 0.5 - just ahead of Croatia, Algeria and Finland, but behind Estonia, Italy and Turkey. This was decried in Nairobi by Grian, the Greenhouse Ireland Action Network.
Grian's Pat Finnegan, who is attending the UN Climate Change Conference, said: "The contrast between Ireland's desperately poor performance on climate change and its stellar position as the world's third wealthiest country could not be starker."
Mr Finnegan, who contributed to compiling the index, said the "small progress" being made in developing wind energy was being "overwhelmed by spiralling transport emissions and lack of delivery" on the National Climate Change Strategy (2000).
With few exceptions, the big CO2 emitters among the 56 countries on the list - notably the US, which accounts for nearly 22 per cent of global CO2 emissions, and China (nearly 15 per cent) - have fallen behind on climate protection.
"Furthermore, even those countries that have made it into the upper ranks are progressing rather slowly," Mr Bals said.
"If the US, currently among the bottom five, were to exercise an international climate policy stance as progressive as the UK, it would move up more than 30 places," he added. However, this is unlikely to happen during the Bush administration.
Through its wide range of criteria, the analysis underlying the index allows for an evaluation of the effectiveness of climate policy measures - such as support for renewable energy and participation in CO2 emissions trading.
Recently, usage of the index for country ratings in financial markets was agreed with German rating agency OEKOM Research in Munich.
It is based on data from the International Energy Agency and a "qualitative survey" by national experts.
Meanwhile, talks at the climate change summit are proceeding in the customary tortuous fashion. No agreement has been reached on any issue, so much will be left for environment ministers to negotiate in the "high-level segment", starting tomorrow. But there was cautious optimism in Nairobi last night that some deal could yet be reached on what happens after the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. "It's still very fluid in informal contacts, but that's a good sign at this stage," one source said.
UN secretary general Kofi Annan will announce a two-year plan to help Africa respond to global warming when he addresses the climate change summit tomorrow. Africa is expected to be harder hit than any other continent.