In the same group, the US is at the bottom of the scale measuring agricultural, forest and fisheries management, in part because the study is weighted against countries with a high level of crop subsidies. The study's authors say that such subsidies "in agriculture, fish-eries and energy sectors have been shown to have negative impacts on resource use and management practices."
In the area of environmental health, the study measured factors like sanitation, lead exposure and indoor air pollution, a particular concern in the least developed countries, where indoor home fires may be common. In those measures, the richest countries, including the US, Canada,
Australia, New Zealand, Japan, France, Britain, Ireland and the countries of north and central Europe score near 100 percent.
On the same scale, the poorest countries fared worst, with 32 of 37 sub-Saharan African nations, along with Bangladesh, Haiti, Yemen, Tajikistan, Laos, Cambodia and Papua New Guinea scoring at or below 40 percent. Chad and Niger rank last in the world, with scores of 0 percent and 1 percent, respectively.
"In the zone we capture as the field of play, they're at the very bottom," Esty said. "It doesn't mean that nobody there has a toilet. It means a very, very small percent do."
Carbon dioxide emissions from nations with rapid economic expansion, like China and India, are more than double the world average (731 tonnes and 621 tonnes, respectively).
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