The United Nations Human Development Index, the Human Development Index (HDi), For thirty years, it has been measuring the quality of life in different countries not only on the basis of per capita income, but also taking into account the level of education and length of life. HDI was perfected over two years to accommodate that as well pressure that each nation exerts on the balance of the planet, This includes a per capita measurement of both CO2 emissions and the so-called material footprint, i.e. the net withdrawal of natural resources. The new index for sustainable development is called Planetary Pressures–Adjusted Human Development Index (Phdi).
After a first experimental ranking As published by the United Nations in the 2020 Human Development Report, the Phdi was updated with more recent data on environmental variables in the subsequent 2021/2022 report and the results are surprising and striking in many ways. According to 2021 estimates, several well-placed advanced nations in the traditional HDi rankings are falling many places in the Phdi rankings. Among them, well behind are the USA, Canada, Australia, but also Ireland, the Netherlands, Finland and Switzerland: all countries that exert very high pressure on the planet’s environmental balance. On the contrary, the European Mediterranean countries climbed several places in the ranking, notably among them Spain and Italy, whose environmental indices are among the best of the more developed countries.
The 2021 Sustainable Development Rankings drawn up by the UN completely revolutionize traditional standards for measuring the quality of life. As a matter of fact, First up is the UK, which was already well positioned in the HDi but gains 15 places thanks to the adjustment factor for planetary loads; In second place is Spain, which gains 24 places; And In third place is Italy The improves its ranking by 25 places. Furthermore, in the Phdi 2021, France is in seventh place with a 21 place improvement, Greece moves up to tenth place with a 22 place improvement and Portugal jumps to eleventh place with a 27 place improvement. Overall, therefore, the five major European Mediterranean countries distinguish themselves as economies characterized by balanced development in relation to the need to preserve the environment and natural resources.
Always in the top ten In the Phdi Ranking 2021 we find Germany (fourth), Denmark (fifth), Sweden (sixth), Switzerland (which however falls from first to eighth place and loses 7 places compared to HDi) and Japan (ninth). Far behind and due to their strong global pressures are the Netherlands (twenty-seventh place), Finland (thirty-eighth place), the United States (fifty-fifth place), Canada (sixtieth place), Ireland (sixty-fifth place) and Australia (ninetieth place). -First).
Among the EU countries, the economies with the best environmental adjustment factors are Portugal, Italy and Spain. France is ninth. Germany is only tenth.
Although these indices speak clearly about the sustainable development of the major countries of our continent, The European Commission is increasingly urging Europe towards a kind of productive “suicide” in the name of dogmatic environmental protection and the goals of ecological transition. placed at the table without regard to technological neutrality and completely detached from reality. While other areas of the planet continue to pollute at full speed.
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