Australia goes at bottom of leadership & climate change index

Oct 20, 2014 - Australia was the worst performer among 60 countries in terms of leadership and climate change according to US consultancy Dual Citizen LLC’s Global Green Economy Index (GGEI), released today.

The fourth edition of the index compares and contrasts the perceptions of the green economic performance of 60 countries to their actual performance on the GGEI. In the case of Australia, Dual Citizen discovered that the perceptions exceed by far the real green performance, especially when it comes to leadership and climate change.

The differences between perceptions and performance are also significant for Japan, the Netherlands and the US. "These countries appear to receive more credit than they deserve, an information gap that requires further exploration," Dual Citizen said.

Daily the Australian today quoted Greens leader Christine Milne as saying that Australia’s drop in the index is a result of the uncertainty created by the federal government’s actions over the past months. The country’s new government, which entered office in September 2013, launched a review of the Renewable Energy Target (RET) scheme, abolished the carbon tax and plans to kill the Climate Change Authority and the Clean Energy Finance Corp.

In February the Australian government picked global warming skeptic Dick Warburton to review the RET programme, which is the instrument driving green investment in the country. The review panel’s report came out in August, calling for the close of the RET scheme to new entrants with large-scale projects, among other measures threatening the sector’s future.

The GGEI measures how countries perform in terms of leadership and climate change, efficiency, markets and investment, and environment and natural capital.

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