Trump-era rollbacks left US behind peers in climate change fight: report

The U.S. plummeted in international rankings of action on climate change, due predominantly to rollbacks under the Trump administration, according to a report issued Wednesday from Yale and Columbia University researchers. 

For the Environmental Performance Index (EPI), researchers traced countries’ progress toward net-zero emissions, a goal nearly every nation has established. From 2010 to 2019, the U.S. ranked 20th out of 22 western democracies and 43rd overall on its trajectory toward net-zero, according to the EPI. 

“This relatively low ranking reflects the rollback of environmental protections during the Trump Administration,” the report states. “In particular, its withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement and weakened methane emissions rules meant the United States lost precious time to mitigate climate change while many of its peers in the developed world enacted policies to significantly reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.” 

Britain and Denmark are the only countries on track to achieve net-zero by 2050, according to the report. Meanwhile, Namibia and Botswana would achieve the goal based on current progress but are not considered on track because projected growth in their economies is predicted to knock them off course, according to the EPI. 

However, the report also found that countries high on the ranking have managed to “decouple” their emissions from economic expansion rather than having to make a choice between increased emissions or economic contraction.   

The previous EPI included data through 2017, making this the first edition to incorporate data from the Trump presidency. It does not include any data from the Biden administration, and does not reflect many of Biden’s attempts to reverse Trump-era rollbacks, such as rejoining the Paris climate agreement and a temporary pause on fossil fuel leasing on public lands. 

The report determined that without stronger mitigation policies, 24 countries will comprise 8 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, and four countries — the U.S., China, India and Russia — will represent more than 50 percent.  

Echoing other research, the EPI also found that emissions have rebounded to pre-pandemic levels after dropping in the early months of the pandemic.