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 Luxembourg.
Luxembourg is quickly becoming a hub for sustainable finance with a dedicated task force for climate finance. In 2020, Luxembourg began selling sustainability bonds designed to raise money for green and social projects. By linking sustainability directly to the economic market, Luxembourg is using the market to fund sustainability projects and raise the profile and viability of green finance.
Transport is by far the biggest source of CO2 emissions in Luxembourg, as the country has the highest rations of cars to people in the EU. But Luxembourg has made significant efforts to encourage people to transition away from cars toward more sustainable transit by making all public transport within the country completely free. Fewer cars will lower GHG emissions from the transport sector, improve air quality, and improve quality of life in urban areas affected by motor congestion
- Luxembourg is moving toward increasing dependence on renewable energy, having doubled its solar power and tripled its wind power in the past five years.
- Luxembourg’s GHG emissions and waste production are decoupling from economic growth.
- Significant portions of Luxembourg’s GHG emissions are from fuel tourism, referring to visitors buying fuel in Luxembourg due their low fuel prices
* Luxembourg has no coast or naval activity.
** 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.
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
