Ireland really is green... 1 comment
FRIDAY 05/10/2007 08:44:27
It's official! Ireland really is green
Ireland has scored in the top ten in a league of countries' green credentials.
Britain, however, scores badly in the league, despite attempts to be a world leader on climate change, a study claims today.
Ireland romped home in 7th place in the table of 141 countries while Britain was ranked 25th in the list of greenest and best places to live, according to research for Readers` Digest.
The study also gave London a rating of just 27th out of 72 world cities for being environmentally friendly.
The country which came top in the poll - based on nations` green credentials and other indicators of how desirable they are to live in such as education and income - was Finland, followed by Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Austria.
Ethiopia came bottom of the league table.
The greenest city was judged to be Stockholm, followed by Oslo.
Germany had four cities in the top 10 - Munich, Frankfurt, Stuttgart and Dusseldorf, while France, which ranked 16th overall, had three - Paris, Lyon and Nantes.
The worst cities were all in Asia, with Beijing at the bottom of the table.
The analysis was carried out by US environmental economist Matthew Kahn using the UN 2006 Human Development Index and the 2005 Environmental Sustainability Index.
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1 comment(s) post your comment On 7 Oct at 01:38 - martin from belfast said:
t'be shure isn't it great that we're green.. but could we have less rain and only 39 shades???
A new survey into the world's greenest and most livable countries has concluded that out of 141 countries reviewed, Finland is the greenest.

Some of the top 20, in order, were Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Austria, Switzerland, Ireland, Australia, Uruguay, Denmark, Canada, Japan, Israel, Italy, Slovenia, France, Netherlands, Portugal, New Zealand and Greece. The poorest results went to African countries, which dominated the bottom of the table, with Ethiopia coming in last place.

"Finland wins high marks for air and water quality, a low incidence of infant disease and how well it protects citizens from water pollution and natural disasters," commented the study. Other factors taken into account when ranking the countries included quality of education and income level.

Some other results were the United Kingdom at 25th, the United States at 23rd and China at 84.

The study also looked at individual cities. Of the 72 examined, Stockholm came out on top, followed in order by Oslo,  and Paris. A total of four German cities were ranked in the top ten — Munich, Frankfurt,  and  — and French cities Lyon and  joined Paris in the top ten as well. New York came in at 15th and London at 27th. At the bottom end were mainly Asian cities, with Beijing's  problems earning it the lowest spot in the table. Guangzhou and Shanghai were also near the bottom.