According to the latest Environmental Performance Index done by Yale University, Kuwait is now ranked #42 out of 178 countries listed. This makes Kuwait the 3rd best performing Arab country behind only the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
Kuwait has moved up more than 100 places since I first posted about this index back in 2012 when Kuwait ranked nearly last. According to the Minister of Oil and State Minister for National Assembly Affairs, the improvement of the government environment policy was a major reason for the 2014 EPI improvement.
Check out the full rankings [Here]
Thanks Ali
6 replies on “Kuwait Moves up in the Environmental Performance Index”
I’m not sure where they’re getting their information from but it does not reflect what I see on the ground and around me. You only have to look at the very visible air pollution from the power stations (that band of yellow dirt across the sky), the huge litter/garbage problem and worst, from my perspective, the dumping of un-treated or semi-treated waste into the sea. Often in the early evenings you can see streams of effluent emanating from the storm-drains – in some areas the smell plainly indicates sewage. A significant number of the green waste tankers also just ditch their untreated loads into the storm drain system rather than take it for treatment. You often see this practice around Abu Hassaniya, Messila and other coastal areas. Some evenings when I head out to sea on my paddle board I have to go 200 metres out to sea before I get through the filth that has been pumped out. I look forward to the day when these issues are resolved.
This is a misleading spin by KUNA (which ran the Minister’s piece).
In terms of Air Quality we got worse (rank: 167th of 178), but made gains w/ Biodiversity & Habitat (the reserves).
The full study can be found here:https://epi.yale.edu/epi/country-profile/kuwait
Sewage still pours into the ocean, we have almost 20 landfills), biggest tire graveyard in the world, air quality is terrible due to factories and oil installations; government still uses diesel for public transportation (no efforts to go green).
Make no mistake about it, Kuwait remains a very polluted city.
Kuwait has recently promulgated a new comprehensive Environmental Protection Law (No. 42 of 2014) which created “Environmental Police” it is a far cry from where things should be but a step in the right direction nonetheless. This could be one of the reasons.
if the critics see Abbasiya and hasawi in Jaleeb,i guess the index would move down.
It’s sucks when you are behind Saudi Arabia in anything.
the EPA refused to provide an official report on the percentage of Kuwait’s carbon dioxide emissions as this may cause legal responsibility for Kuwait as it has signed the Kyoto and Montreal protocols on substances that deplete the ozone layer and climate change.
https://kuwaitsustainability.wordpress.com/2014/09/09/kuwait-epa-fails-to-provide-environment-data/