Portugal also saw its rating improve on last year, moving up one position.
While Portugal is placed 14th, it is actually listed as being in 17th position, with the Index keeping the podium places empty due to no nation ‘deserving’ to be in top three.
With comparably good ratings in emissions and renewables Sweden again leads the ranking (Rank 4), followed by Morocco that significantly increased its share of renewable energy capacity and has an ambitious national climate target. India moves to rank 11 as a result of an improved performance in renewable energy, comparatively low levels of per capita emissions and a relatively ambitious mitigation target for 2030.
Germany falls again, from place 22 to place 27 and is now in the middle of medium-performing countries. The country shows a relatively low performance in the emissions category, emissions have not decreased since 2009.
China climbs to rank 33, being in the group of the medium-performing countries for the first time.
In the group of very low performers we find almost half of the G20 countries: Japan (49), Turkey (50), Russian Federation (52), Canada (54), Australia (55), Korea (57) and - at the bottom of the index - USA (59) and Saudi Arabia (60).
The USA again lost several places due to its low to very low-rated performance in the GHG Emissions, Renewable Energy and Energy Use.
The experts from the USA rated the climate policy of the Trump administration very low, but they highlight some positive signals because of climate action in several states and cities and because of the Democrats promise to push climate policy with their new majority in the House of Representatives.
Overall, the Index found that after three consecutive years of stable CO2 emissions, emissions are rising again.
While there is a continued growth and competitiveness of renewable energy, especially in countries that had low shares before, the CCPI shows a lack of political will of most governments to phase out fossil fuels with the necessary speed. Because of that, in most countries the climate policy evaluation by national experts is significantly lower than in the last years.
Jan Burck, co-author of the CCPI at Germanwatch, comments: “Based on techno-economic developments in the last years, delay in implementation of low-carbon solutions can hardly be justified. While the G20 summit has shown strong support of 19 countries to support the Paris Agreement, the political will of those Governments to set the right frameworks and incentives for its national implementation is not yet reflected in these words.”