TACKLING climate change calls for global teamwork, but some countries have been less than perfect partners. In order to understand why some nations fall behind in their international climate duties, Mich猫le Battig and colleagues at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, created a 鈥渃limate cooperation index鈥� based on five indicators: how promptly each country ratified the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Kyoto protocol; how often it paid its contributions to the UNFCCC; whether the country submitted its last emissions report on time; and how much it reduced its carbon dioxide emissions between 1990 and 2002, relative to per capita GDP.
Among major climate players, the UK and Germany came out on top, with the US and Australia at the bottom (see Map).
鈥淭he UK and Germany came out on top, with the US and Australia at the bottom鈥�
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Overall, at the top of the list of 188 countries were Latvia, Micronesia and Slovakia, while the least cooperative were Iraq, Brunei, Andorra and Somalia, which refused to ratify climate protocols and also failed in the other categories (Environmental Science and Policy, ). Though the index favours countries with lower GDPs, it paints a realistic political picture, says Battig.
The team are now using the index to test how climate cooperation varies with political systems, economic development, local climate change and degree of oil dependence.
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