Singapore No. 1 in global ranking of environmental degradation

New study ranks countries on environment impact
University of Adelaide, EurekAlert 4 May 10;

A new study led by the University of Adelaide's Environment Institute in Australia has ranked most of the world's countries for their environmental impact.

The research uses seven indicators of environmental degradation to form two rankings – a proportional environmental impact index, where impact is measured against total resource availability, and an absolute environmental impact index measuring total environmental degradation at a global scale.

Led by the Environment Institute's Director of Ecological Modelling Professor Corey Bradshaw, the study has been published in the on-line, peer-reviewed science journal PLoS ONE (found at www.plosone.org).

The world's 10 worst environmental performers according to the proportional environmental impact index (relative to resource availability) are: Singapore, Korea, Qatar, Kuwait, Japan, Thailand, Bahrain, Malaysia, Philippines and Netherlands.

In absolute global terms, the 10 countries with the worst environmental impact are (in order, worst first): Brazil, USA, China, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, India, Russia, Australia and Peru.

The indicators used were natural forest loss, habitat conversion, fisheries and other marine captures, fertiliser use, water pollution, carbon emissions from land use and species threat.

"The environmental crises currently gripping the planet are the corollary of excessive human consumption of natural resources," said Professor Bradshaw. "There is considerable and mounting evidence that elevated degradation and loss of habitats and species are compromising ecosystems that sustain the quality of life for billions of people worldwide."

Professor Bradshaw said these indices were robust and comprehensive and, unlike existing rankings, deliberately avoided including human health and economic data – measuring environmental impact only.

The study, in collaboration with the National University of Singapore and Princeton University, found that the total wealth of a country (measured by gross national income) was the most important driver of environmental impact.

"We correlated rankings against three socio-economic variables (human population size, gross national income and governance quality) and found that total wealth was the most important explanatory variable – the richer a country, the greater its average environmental impact," Professor Bradshaw said.

There was no evidence to support the popular idea that environmental degradation plateaus or declines past a certain threshold of per capital wealth (known as the Kuznets curve hypothesis).

"There is a theory that as wealth increases, nations have more access to clean technology and become more environmentally aware so that the environmental impact starts to decline. This wasn't supported," he said.

###

Professor Bradshaw also holds a joint position with the South Australian Research and Development Institute (SARDI).

Australia's global footprint one of the worst
Birdie Smith, The Age 6 May 10;

AUSTRALIA ranks among the world's 10 worst countries for environmental impact, according to research that found the richer a country, the greater its environmental footprint.

Published in the science journal PLoS ONE yesterday, research led by Professor Corey Bradshaw, of the University of Adelaide's environment institute, found Australia's carbon emissions, rate of species threat and natural forest loss were the greatest contributors to its ninth-place ranking.

Countries were measured on a range of indicators, including fertiliser use, natural forest loss, habitat conservation, fisheries and other marine captures, water pollution, carbon emissions and species threat.

Professor Bradshaw said in many cases there was a link. ''If you're clearing a lot of forests, you tend to also to overharvest in the ocean and use a lot of fertilisers.''

The 10 countries with the worst global footprint were Brazil, the US, China, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, India, Russia, Australia and Peru.

Professor Bradshaw said while he was not surprised that the US and China were in the top 10, he was surprised that a relatively poor country such as Brazil took out the top spot.

''The wealthier you are, the more damage you do, on average,'' he said. ''It's just a function of human nature. Growth is the be-all and end-all for all economies around the world, and if you're not growing economically, you're stagnant, and therefore that's a bad thing and governments get sacked. So we have a system built around increasing our consumption rates, and that's unsustainable in the long term.''

Unlike other rankings, the study did not include human health and economic data, instead focusing exclusively on environmental indicators.

Professor Bradshaw said while Australia had few forests to start with, land clearing had removed more than half of them since European settlement.

Released in the United Nations' International Year of Biodiversity, the study also indicates that Australia has the highest mammalian extinction rate in the world, largely due to introduced species such as foxes, cats and rats, and habitat loss. ''And we are one of the highest per capita water users and carbon emitters in the world,'' Professor Bradshaw said.

The study, in collaboration with the National University of Singapore and Princeton University, also developed a separate ranking using a proportional environmental impact index, which measured impact against resource availability. On that scale, the 10 worst countries were Singapore, Korea, Qatar, Kuwait, Japan, Thailand, Bahrain, Malaysia, the Philippines and the Netherlands.

Professor Bradshaw said the better-ranked countries were small places such as Cape Verde, Swaziland, Niger and Grenada.

''They haven't wiped out all their forests but they live well below what we'd consider poverty,'' he said. ''We have things to learn from these countries in terms of consumption and in reducing our consumption.''

We're in the top 10 of worst polluters
Ben Cubby, Sydney Morning Herald 6 May 10;

Australia has earned the dubious honour of being in the top 10 countries with the worst environmental impact on the planet, according to a major international study of more than 200 nations.

The report challenges the idea that high levels of wealth, education and access to non-polluting technology lead to better environmental results. The more money citizens have, the more they damage they do, the study suggests.

Researchers from the Adelaide University, National University of Singapore and Princeton University in the US measured forest and habitat loss, species extinction, greenhouse gas emissions, fisheries and fertiliser use.

''It's a very attractive hypothesis, that as nations become richer they become more environmentally aware and their impact starts to decline,'' Professor Corey Bradshaw, of the environment institute at Adelaide University, told the Herald. ''It makes people feel good about being wealthy. But we looked hard for any evidence of the theory, and we didn't find it.''

Australia was ranked ninth in the list of nations for its absolute impact on the natural world, a ranking derived by cross-referencing data from the United Nations, the World Bank and the World Resources Institute.

The list was headed by Brazil which, though a developing country, has stewardship over landclearing in most of the Amazon rainforest.

On a per capita basis, Singapore was classified as the world's worst offender, followed by South Korea, Qatar, Kuwait and Japan.

The report, published in the Public Library of Science journal, noted that the high representation of Asian countries in its list of poor performers was ''striking''. It suggested this could be explained by the fact that Europe and North America had been developed for longer, meaning much of the land clearing and species extinction had already taken place there.

The report came as the UN released its own summary of the impact of climate change on Africa, concluding that progress in food security and poverty reduction is likely to be overturned as the continent heats up.
BIG IMPACT

Countries ranked by the scale of their total negative impact on the environment.

1 Brazil

2 United States

3 China

4 Indonesia

5 Japan

6 Mexico

7 India

8 Russia

9 Australia

10 Peru

Brazil and U.S. Ranked Worst for Environmental Impact
livescience.com Yahoo News 6 May 10;

Brazil and the United States rank as the two worst countries in terms of their environmental impact, a new study finds.

The researchers, led by the University of Adelaide's Environment Institute in Australia, used seven indicators of environmental degradation to create two rankings - one in which impact was measured against the total resources available to a country, and another measuring absolute environmental degradation at a global scale.

The indicators included: natural forest loss, habitat conversion (when natural areas are converted into shopping centers or farmland), fisheries and other marine captures, fertilizer use, water pollution, carbon emissions from land use, and species threat.

Overall, the richer a country, the greater its environmental impact.

"The environmental crises currently gripping the planet are the corollary of excessive human consumption of natural resources," said study leader Corey Bradshaw, of the Environment Institute. "There is considerable and mounting evidence that elevated degradation and loss of habitats and species are compromising ecosystems that sustain the quality of life for billions of people worldwide."

Here's how the two types of rankings came out:

The world's 10 worst environmental performers (out of 179 considered) according to the proportional environmental impact rank are (with 1 being the worst):
Singapore Korea Qatar Kuwait Japan Thailand Bahrain Malaysia Philippines The Netherlands

The world's 10 worst environmental performers (out of 171 considered) in absolute global terms are:
Brazil USA China Indonesia Japan Mexico India Russia Australia Peru

Bradshaw said that the indices used were robust and comprehensive and, unlike other rankings, deliberately avoided including human health and economic data - measuring environmental impact only.

The study, in collaboration with the National University of Singapore and Princeton University, revealed that the total wealth of a country (measured by gross national income) was the most important driver of environmental impact.

"We correlated rankings against three socio-economic variables (human population size, gross national income and governance quality) and found that total wealth was the most important explanatory variable - the richer a country, the greater its average environmental impact," Bradshaw said.

There was no evidence to support the popular idea that environmental degradation plateaus or declines past a certain threshold of per capital wealth (known as the Kuznets curve hypothesis).

"There is a theory that as wealth increases, nations have more access to clean technology and become more environmentally aware so that the environmental impact starts to decline. This wasn't supported," Bradshaw said.

The study and rankings are detailed online in the journal PLoS ONE.

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