Second From the Bottom, Globally

India has finished near the very bottom of the world’s most closely watched environmental scorecard. In the 2026 Environmental Performance Index (EPI), India ranked 176th out of 177 countries, with an overall score of 22.46 out of 100, ahead only of Laos, which finished last with a score of 21.78. Estonia retained the top position with a score of 74.79, meaning the gap between the world’s best and second-worst performer stretched beyond fifty points.

The EPI, compiled every two years by researchers from Yale and Columbia universities, rates countries on indicators spanning environmental health, ecosystem vitality and climate change mitigation. The 2026 edition assessed 177 countries across 47 indicators grouped into 12 issue categories, with ecosystem vitality carrying the heaviest weighting at 45 per cent, followed by climate change at 30 per cent and environmental health at 25 percent.

Last in the Region

The regional picture is just as stark as the global one. India ranked last among the eight South Asian countries assessed, trailing Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Maldives and Bangladesh. The country’s 2026 standing does, however, mark a slight improvement on the 2022 index, in which India finished dead last, 180th out of 180 countries.

Where the Score Breaks Down

Researchers attributed India’s weak performance to critical air quality problems, continued reliance on coal-fired power and inadequate biodiversity protections. Broken down by category, the picture is uneven: India ranked 174th in environmental health, 171st in ecosystem vitality, and a comparatively stronger 130th in climate change mitigation. The report noted that India’s per-capita emissions remain relatively low but are growing rapidly, leaving the country caught in a development-versus-pollution tension as hundreds of millions of people gain access to modern energy services, often at the cost of serious urban air pollution and rising greenhouse gas emissions.

Some individual indicators told a particularly troubling story. Several of India’s air quality measures over the past decade, including the burden of death and disease from exposure to fine particulate matter, as well as carbon monoxide and sulphur dioxide exposure, showed a negative trend across the ten years. Marine resources fared no better: India’s score on the “Regional Marine Trophic Index” fell by 10.27 points, a decline the EPI’s research director, Zachary Wendling, said could reflect overfishing of species at the top of the food chain, forcing fleets to catch progressively lower on the food web, though he noted that alternative explanations exist, since fleets may also shift toward lower trophic-level species simply because they are more profitable, not because higher-level stocks have become scarce.

A Silver Lining in the Trend Line

Despite the low overall placement, the index also captured a more encouraging signal buried in the details. India’s ten-year change score remained positive at +7.47, an improvement that outpaced several higher-ranked countries, including Romania, which declined by 0.91 points, and the Dominican Republic, which fell by 3.04 points over the same period. Wendling said that applying the EPI’s current methodology to historical data showed India’s environmental performance had genuinely improved over time. While emissions remain high, he noted that the rate of increase for some pollutants, including sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, has slowed. “While emissions of carbon dioxide and some other greenhouse gases are still too high and rising, they are not rising as quickly as they have in the past,” Wendling said.

The 2026 edition also broke new ground methodologically. For the first time, the index included grassland conversion as an indicator, reflecting growing recognition that grasslands play an important role in carbon sequestration and provide ecosystem services that have historically received little policy attention.

Who Else Made the List

European countries continued to dominate the top of the rankings, holding all but one of the top 20 positions. Behind Estonia, the next four places went to Luxembourg, the United Kingdom, Finland and the Netherlands. Beyond South Asia, other major economies produced mixed results: China ranked 129th overall, reflecting weak performance on climate metrics despite improvements in indoor air pollution, water sanitation and solid waste management, while the United States placed 27th, performing well on environmental health but lagging on biodiversity and climate indicators. The report also singled out Botswana and Costa Rica as examples of countries that paired strong economic growth with strong sustainability outcomes, suggesting that development does not have to come at an environmental cost.

India Pushes Back on the Methodology

This is not the first time India has found itself near the bottom of the EPI table, and it is not the first time New Delhi has disputed the result. After India was ranked last in the 2022 edition, the Union Environment Ministry rejected the index’s findings, saying it did not accept the analysis or conclusions and describing the assessment as based on “surmises and unscientific methods”. The ministry also raised concerns about changes in methodology and the way the index treated India’s historical emissions, and questioned shifts in the weighting assigned to different environmental indicators. Responding to that criticism at the time, the EPI’s lead scientist maintained that the rankings have always been based on the current state of environmental conditions rather than on historical emissions or policy intentions.

Methodologies do shift between editions, which complicates direct year-on-year comparisons; the 2022 index used 40 performance indicators, the 2024 edition used 58, and the 2026 edition used 47 across a revised set of categories, a point that gives India’s government further grounds to question the consistency of the exercise even as researchers argue the underlying environmental problems it flags are real.

What It Means Going Forward

The 2026 EPI leaves India with a familiar, uncomfortable dual narrative: a country still near the very bottom of the global environmental league table, weighed down by air pollution, coal dependence and marine and biodiversity strain, but one whose long-term trend line suggests the rate of environmental damage, if not the damage itself, is beginning to slow. With hundreds of millions of citizens still gaining access to modern energy and infrastructure, the index’s authors suggest the country’s central challenge for the coming decade will be decoupling that development from the pollution that has so far accompanied it.

References:

1. Newsgram. “India Ranks 176th Out of 177 Countries in Global Environment Performance Index 2026, Among World’s Worst Performers,” July 13, 2026.
2. The Wire. “At 176th Position, India Ranks Second From Lowest in Latest Environment Performance Index,” July 2026.
3. National Herald India. “India scrapes the bottom of environment index in 2026 report,” July 2026.
4. Shafaqna India. “India Ranks Last in 2026 Environmental Performance Index,” July 2026.
5. Scroll. in. “India ranks second from last in global environment index,” July 2026.
6. State of the Planet, Columbia Climate School. “New Environmental Performance Index Highlights Sustainability Gains and the Challenges Ahead,” July 15, 2026.
   

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