Environment & Climate Change

Today, heat pumps are increasingly developing into a sustainable and efficient alternative to furnaces in climates with moderate heating and cooling needs. Heat pumps are systems that move heat from one place to another by using a compressor and a circulating structure of liquid or gas refrigerant, through which heat is extracted from outside sources and pumped indoors. As heat pumps only move heat, heat pumps enable space conditioning...

The International organization Global Footprint Network published its annual The National Footprint Accounts 2019 (NFAs), upgrading the data and interactive maps on the ecological impact for over 200 countries and regions in the world using U.N. data from 1961 to 2016. Traditionally, the methodology of NFAs is based on the comparison of two indicators in relation to each other: ecological footprint (human demand on goods and services...

Since 2005, the international Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI) annually evaluates the environmental protection performance of countries and how they are dealing with global climate change. The developers of the index are the German independent organizations Germanwatch and the New Climate Institute in cooperation with the Climate Action Network, which unites more than 1,300 environmental NGOs from 120 countries around the world....

The National Footprint Accounts (NFAs) annually track and update countries’ natural resources use, including their ecological footprint and biocapacity, offering interactive world maps for over 200 nations and regions at data.footprintnetwork.org. The research is provided by the international organization Global Footprint Network in cooperation with the International Energy Agency and more than 70 other organizations worldwide. The...

The 2018 Environmental Performance Index (EPI)  evaluated and compared 180 countries according to their performance in protecting human health from environmental harm and safeguarding ecosystems according to internationally established targets. The project is led by  Yale University  and  Columbia University  in collaboration with the  World Economic Forum. Within two policy objectives - Environmental...

The annual Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI), produced by Germanwatch, the New Climate Institute, and Climate Action Network, is an instrument designed to enhance transparency in international climate politics. The 2018 index evaluates the climate protection performance of 56 countries and for the first time includes the EU as the only supranational entity, which are together responsible for more than 90 percent of global...

Every year the international research organization Global Footprint Network develops and publishes the National Footprint Accounts (NFAs), revealing countries’ ecological resource use and resource capacity. The 2017 Edition of the National Footprint Accounts covers nearly 150 countries from 1961 to 2013, the year for which the most recent data is available. The calculations in the National Footprint Accounts are primarily based on...

The 2017 Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI), produced by the independent NGOs Germanwatch and Climate Action Network Europe, as usual, covers 58 countries most responsible for global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels. The authors use an assessment methodology for each country based on 15 different indicators in five categories, the most important of which are Emissions Level and Development of Emissions, comprising 60% of...

Since 2006 Yale University and Columbia University in collaboration with the World Economic Forum have biennially produced The Environmental Performance Index (EPI), which ranks how countries perform on achieving environmental policy goals in two main areas: Environmental Health and Ecosystem Vitality. The tenth 2016 EPI report covers 99 percent of the world’s population and 97 percent of global land area and is the most comprehensive...