We all know how the United States is the world's leading polluter. Well, according to a study done by a German environmental group of 56 countries, the other economic giant in the world, China is not doing any better when it comes to climate change. While the United States places 53 out of 56 countries, China places 54. While hardly surprising, this is an absolutely intolerable development (China dropped from 29th in the previous survey)
Opposition to enforcing global standards on emissions and enacting serious measures to deal with climate change usually focus on the economic ramifications for both developed and, especially developing nations. What is interesting about the list is that the top ten are a mixture of highly developed countries, including some that regularly land near the top of UN's Human Development Index and some developing countries:
....At the upper end of the scale, seven European countries -- led by Sweden, Britain and Denmark, respectively -- and a trio of developing economies -- Argentina, Brazil, and India -- were deemed among the top ten, it said.
Others in the top ten were Malta, Germany, Hungary and Switzerland, while France ranked 12th, leading the group to call for Europe to take the lead in global efforts to combat climate change.
Sweden can claim to have the best record against climate change and place 5th on the human development index while Argentina can go through its worst economic crisis in its history just 5 years ago and place in the top ten on the climate change list. While China's environmental standing plummets, the other emerging Asian economic power, India, finished in the top ten.
Resisting measures against climate change for economic reasons is a complete cop out, demonstrating an unimaginative, greedy approach that, given the perils of global warming, is a crime against humanity.
The report concludes pessimistically:
At the same time, he [policy director Christoph Bals] lamented that even the efforts of the top scorers were not enough to effectively curb and reverse global warming.
"There is no winner," Bals said. "The leader, Sweden, is only the one-eyed king among the blind."
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