The United States is further behind other nations on climate progress due to regression in the Trump era, The Verge reports.
Researchers found that the U.S. fell even further behind while now-former President Donald Trump was in the White House. America plummeted in the international rankings of action on climate change, predominantly due to Trump’s rollbacks.
Yale and Columbia University researchers traced countries’ progress towards net-zero emissions for the Environmental Performance Index (EPI). Net-zero emissions is a goal that nearly every country has established.
From 2010 to 2019, the U.S. ranked horrifically, at 20th out of 22 western democracies in its trajectory toward net-zero, according to the EPI. The nation ranked 43rd overall. This is a huge fall from the previous ranking, which had put the U.S. in 24th place just two years ago.
In terms of climate indicators alone, the U.S. fell all the way to 101 from its previous spot at 15th place.
The report said that this low ranking reflects the rollbacks of environmental protections that occurred because of the Trump Administration.
In particular, Trump withdrawing the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement was massively detrimental. So too was Trump’s weakening of methane emission rules. It meant that the U.S. lost time to mitigate climate catastrophe, while many of its peers in the developed world continued to enact policies to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The only two countries currently on track to achieve net-zero by 2050 are Denmark and the United Kingdom, according to the report.
Two other countries, Namibia and Botswana, also are currently on track based on current progress, however, the EPI said they are not considered “on track” because of their projected economic growth, which is expected to knock them off-course.
President Joe Biden recommitted the U.S. to the Paris Agreement almost immediately after taking office, but more legislation is needed to move the U.S. to clean energy more swiftly. Unfortunately, this has been stymied in Congress, particularly by Republicans.
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