This post originally appeared on State of the Planet, the Earth Institute's blog.

In January, 132 countries received their environmental report cards. The Environmental Performance Index, released at the World Economic Forum in Davos, ranked countries on aspects of environmental impacts on human health and on ecosystems. The rankings were based on scores each country earned on 22 indicators dealing with environmental health, air pollution, water, biodiversity and habitat, agriculture, forests, fisheries, and climate change and energy. Coming in at first place on the 2012 EPI is Switzerland, with Latvia, Norway, Luxembourg, and Costa Rica rounding out the top five. The U.S is ranked 49th and Iraq is in last place. MORE 

In a recent study on trade and the environment, the Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy conducted a pilot time trend analysis, painting a clearer picture of the complex relationship between country-level CO₂emissions and trade intensity. The analysis examines changes in trade intensity (as seen through trade as a percent of GDP) alongside two measures of CO₂ emissions—CO₂ per capita and CO₂ per GDP. The former CO₂ measure indicates emissions intensity per person, while the latter indicates the emissions intensity of the economy.

Time trends show that the most common phenomenon is a decline in emissions per GDP with increasing trade intensity, an indication that economies become more carbon efficient as trade becomes a greater portion of GDP. However, the data also reveal a troubling trend among countries: emissions per capita most commonly increase with increasing trade, an indication that trade might be harmful in terms of emissions. MORE