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 Kuwait.
Under the advancing climate crisis, Kuwait is set to suffer from higher temperatures, higher airborne dust and sand falling ratio, increased frequency of sandstorms, lack of seasonal rains, limited water resources, increased desertification and a decline in vegetation cover.
Under its commitment to the Paris Agreement, Kuwait intends to move to a low carbon equivalent economy through the implementation of various projects. It has not quantified its commitments.
Kuwait plans to produce clean fuel, construct new, low- emitting refineries to replace ageing ones, improve energy efficiency from municipal solid waste, generate more energy from renewable sources and build railway projects that link ports of Kuwait.
Kuwait contributes 0.3% to global emissions and it cites this as a reason that more ambitious climate action will not be taken.
- Kuwait is extremely arid, with temperatures reaching 45°C in summer, during which there is no rainfall. It is one of the most water-stressed countries in the world, and relies heavily on food imports because of the lack of local agriculture.
- Kuwait’s emissions in 2016 were 86 336.448 Gg CO2-equivalent, and they intend to reduce these by 5 600 Gg annually, for a total of 60 000Gg CO2-equivalent by 2035.
- While this is deemed insufficient, Kuwait’s economy relies heavily on oil and they are still taking action to reduce their barrel capacity in a move to contribute to climate change mitigation.
* Our Climate Change Ranking considers this country’s efforts toward climate change insufficient and thus has not ranked it.
You might also like: Global Emissions (2016)
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
