"BRIC" countries top many industrialized nations in environmental commitment.

The so-called "BRIC" countries--Brazil, Russia, India, and China--all scored in the top 11 in a recent ranking of countries' commitment to the environment. The list evaluates the efforts of these four nations alongside those of 21 members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a group of the world's wealthier nations. The results indicate that when it comes to finding solutions to climate change, "rich countries should take the lead, but developing countries need to follow pretty closely behind," said David Roodman of the Center for Global Development (CGD).

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The ranking is part of CGD's 2007 Commitment to Development Index, an annual assessment of OECD countries' efforts to "build prosperity, good government, and security." The Index evaluates indicators in seven key areas--aid, trade, investment, migration, environment, security, and technology--and calculates an overall score for each nation. Of the 21 OECD countries surveyed, the Netherlands scored highest, in part because of policies that promote productive investment in poor countries, while Japan scored lowest, in part because of its high tariffs on rice imports.

In 2007, for the first time in its five-year history, the Index evaluated the BRIC countries' environmental performance alongside the OECD countries. Because data were not available for all countries, the evaluation was restricted to several key indicators. Brazil, Russia, and India all ranked in the top five because they performed well in measurements of greenhouse gas emissions per capita and consumption of ozone-depleting substances. Australia and the United States placed last due in part to high emissions per capita and their failure to ratify the Kyoto Protocol.

David Wheeler, a senior fellow at CGD, suggests a metaphor to better understand the greenhouse gas component of the ranking. "Suppose you see a school, and it's busy, and it's well-organized, things seem to be going well, and the school grades on a curve," he explains. Although several students are getting high marks, only one student in the school in fact passes the state exam. The nations of the world are like this, Wheeler says, because while some are doing better than others, none have low enough emissions per capita to be sustainable: "Although there are A, C, and F grades,... collectively, we're all failing."