Welcome to the Earth.Org Global Sustainability Index, where Earth.Org examines the policies and actions regarding the environment of every nation on earth. Combining the most respected global indexes on pollution, climate change, policy, energy, oceans, biodiversity we have produced an overall Global Index, which will be updated annually. This is the Global Sustainability Index scorecard for Armenia.
Armenia is a landlocked, mountainous country with high vulnerability to climate change, with increased temperatures and decreased rainfall threatening the country with drought. As a developing country recovering from deep economic crisis, energy blockage and conflict, Armenia’s main challenge is to ensure economic growth and its population’s well-being. Nonetheless it has committed to the global effort for climate change mitigation by submitting its Nationally Determined Contribution under the Paris Agreement.
Armenia is only responsible for 0.017% of global emissions but has pledged to reduce the projected greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions growth that will inevitably come with projected growth. This will hinge on financial and technological support from the international community, allowing it to develop renewable energy infrastructure and nuclear power generation.
Crucial to Armenia’s future is building resilience to climate change. Water shortages predicted by different climate scenarios hit the country in 2014 and 2015 which could become more frequent in light of expected drops in precipitation. Its strategy for sustainable development relies mainly on ecosystem management and forestry, as this area suffered greatly during an energy crisis in the 1990s.
- Armenia is recovering from decades of economic strife and conflict, and has limited means to curtail its already meagre emissions.
- Climate change threatens its agriculture and industry sectors, with projected water shortages due to drops in precipitation.
- It intends to limit the inevitable growth in emissions that will come with the next decades of development, while tending to its damaged ecosystems.
* Our Climate Change Ranking considers this country’s efforts/impact toward climate change insufficient and thus has not ranked it.
** Our Energy ranking considers emission intensity (units of energy per unit of GDP). When one or both are low enough to make their influence negligible on a global scale, the country is left out of the ranking.
*** Armenia has no coast or naval activity.
Global Sustainability Main Page.
References:
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Biodiversity, Policy: Sachs, J., Schmidt-Traub, G., Kroll, C., Lafortune, G., Fuller, G. (2019): Sustainable Development Report 2019. New York: Bertelsmann Stiftung and Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN).
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Oceans: Halpern, Benjamin S., et al. “An index to assess the health and benefits of the global ocean.” Nature 488.7413 (2012): 615-620.
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Pollution: Wendling, Z. A., Emerson, J. W., Esty, D. C., Levy, M. A., de Sherbinin, A., et al. (2018). 2018 Environmental Performance Index. New Haven, CT: Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy. https://epi.yale.edu/
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Climate Change: Climate Change Performance Index; Jan Burck, Ursula Hagen, Niklas Höhne, Leonardo Nascimento, Christoph Bals, ISBN 978-3-943704-75-4, 2019
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Energy: Enerdata –World Energy Statistics – Yearbook.
World Energy Statistics
