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Experts have called India’s ranking in Yale University’s latest global Environmental Performance Index (EPI) as a wake-up call that cannot be ignored any longer.
The ranking released recently by Yale has put India in 176th position; second lowest after Laos among 177 countries assessed in the analysis. India scored 22.46 per cent in EPI while Estonia with 74.79 per cent topped the global list.
The comprehensive ranking, that was initiated in 2000 and considered 47 indicators linked to 12 issues for the 2026 EPI assessment, has found India to be sliding overall over the last decade.
India fell from 141st spot in 2016 to 177th in 2018 to 168th in 2020 to 180th — lowest within all countries — in 2022. The country was ranked 176th in both 2024 and 2026 and has remained within the worst performing five countries since 2022. In South Asia, India stood 7th among 8 countries in the 2026 assessment.
“India, whose per-capita emissions remain relatively low but are growing rapidly, faces an acute development-versus-pollution tension as hundreds of millions of people gain access to modern energy services but at the price of serious urban air pollution and spiking GHG emissions,” claims the report.
“I have nothing to add to what was being pointed out officially in 2022 when India was given the lowest ranking,” said an environment department official, when quizzed on this year’s ranking. In 2022, the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) refused to accept the findings claiming that the conclusion had been drawn “based on surmises and unscientific methods”.
A few of the experts, with whom this correspondent spoke about the latest ranking, expressed certain apprehensions on the broad methodology of ranking. But they also admitted that consistent poor performance over the years is a point of concern and the report should not be ignored.
In the latest assessment, India was found to have performed poorly in environment health, particularly air quality as well as in biodiversity (174th in both). Meanwhile, it has done comparatively better in climate change (130th) and waste management as well as sanitation (both being 141st). Climate change is incidentally one of the most improved sectors with 13.98 points rise over the last ten years.
A closer look reveals how India has been slipping on key indicators over a decade.
In air quality, India actually slipped 0.15 points during the last decade. This, despite the country spending Rs 16,423 crore to contain air pollution under its signature National Clean Air Programme initiated in 2019.
India’s performance has also declined in fishery, tree cover and pesticide pollution over the last decade. “The findings vindicate our criticisms about all these issues. You cannot destroy the trees at Araballi, Nicobar or pollute rivers or continue to fall prey to toxic pesticide-dominated agriculture in the name of development; and expect to get good scores in environmental performance,” said a green activist.
“India’s low EPI rank is real but incomplete (and) a warning signal,” pointed out Anjal Prakash, a professor at FLAME University, Pune and the lead author for the UN special report on climate change and cities.
“I don’t fully agree with treating India’s position as a simple verdict on environmental failure. The ranking does capture real problems like air pollution, biodiversity loss, and fossil fuel dependence, but it also squeezes a very large, diverse, and low-income country into a single cross-national score, which can overstate the comparison with richer countries that may have very different historical emission development pathways. So, I do not agree with the methodology,” he explained. Prakash added that “the score suggests the low rank is concentrated in a few high-impact indicators rather than a universal, underperformance.”
“India’s ranking in the Yale EPI should be viewed with caution,” agreed ecological economist Nilanjan Ghosh, who leads development studies at the Observer Research Foundation (ORF) and is also the head of ORF’s Kolkata Centre.
“While the Index provides a useful snapshot of environmental outcomes, it does not fully capture the developmental realities and structural constraints faced by a country of India’s scale, population density and stage of economic transformation,” pointed out Ghosh.
He admitting though that “ …That said, India’s ranking should not be dismissed outright. It is a reminder that critical challenges remain, particularly in air quality, urban environmental management, wastewater treatment and biodiversity conservation. These are areas that demand sustained policy attention and investment”.
Green activists were more vocal. “India’s abysmal ranking in the 2026 EPI is a stark wake-up call that we can no longer ignore. While the methodology of certain Western indices is often debated, the underlying reality on the ground is undeniable: our current development paradigm treats ecological degradation and rampant pollution as acceptable casualties of economic growth,” observed Harjeet Singh, climate activist and founding director of Satat Sampada Climate Foundation.
“To reverse this, India must urgently transition from a ‘grow now, clean up later’ mindset to a model of true ecologically sustainable development. We consistently falter in execution due to lax industrial enforcement and a lack of biodiversity protection. We must enforce non-negotiable pollution controls, and recognise that clean air, resilient ecosystems, and public health are not obstacles to economic growth, but the fundamental pillars required to sustain it,” he added.
While there has been no official response to the current ranking so far by the Centre, the MoEFCC strongly refuted the ranking ascribed to India by Yale researchers in 2022, when the country got the lowest position.
On June 8, 2022, the ministry issued a release where it was categorically told that “…The Ministry of Environment does not accept its (Yale’s) analysis and conclusions.” MoEFCC listed a range of reasons behind its position. “The EPI 2022 released recently has many indicators based on unfounded assumptions. Some of these indicators used for assessing performance are extrapolated and based on surmises and unscientific methods,” it further pointed out.
Yale researchers responded to the allegations in an email reply to this correspondent.
“The (Indian) Ministry would prefer analyses like the EPI rank countries on their policy intentions rather than on the current state of environmental conditions. The EPI has always based our rankings on country performance today; not on what a country promises to accomplish years or decades from now,” pointed out Martin Wolf, Principal Investigator of EPI carried out by the Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy.
“ … The goal of the EPI is to inform current policy choices, not place blame on countries for contributing to climate change or destroying the environment,” added the scientist admitting that historical emission, a point that the Indian government raised, was not part of their consideration.
“I also want to emphasise that the EPI is not just a climate report. Country rankings also reflect air quality, water quality, agriculture, fisheries. Thus, India’s low score reflects poor performance across a variety of important environmental issues,” Wolf added.
