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 Greece.
As part of the EU, Greece is committed to the Paris Agreement along with the 27 other member states, bound to a target of at least 40% domestic reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2030 compared to 1990.
The greek Prime Minister has announced the country’s awareness of climate change, and promised that they will adopt a new national policy regarding energy and climate. This includes a supposed ban on single-use plastics by 2021, the shutdown of lignite-fired power plants by 2028 and an increase in the renewable share of the energy mix to 35% by 2030.
Greece actually surpassed its 2020 targets and is aiming for net zero by 2050. To this end it adopted a National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP) at the end of 2019. This may have been intended to serve as the Paris Agreement commitment renewal scheduled for 2020, but the COVID-19 pandemic has forced most countries to postpone. Konstantinos Aravossis, Secretary General of Natural Environment and Water, has announced the country’s intent to use the pandemic to fuel a green recovery. It remains to be seen whether they will prioritize sustainability before some of the easier.
- Greece is bound to the EU climate mitigation target of a 40% reduction in GHG emissions by 2030, relative to 1990 levels.
- The country surpassed its 2020 target and is on track for net zero by 2050
- The key points of its strategy are to eliminate lignite coal reliance while increasing its renewable energy share
* 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.
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
