Evaluation and Comparative Analysis on EEC

Abstract

According to the evaluation indicator system and the mathematic model of EEC, the evaluation and analysis are made on EEC in 2012. Table 9.1 lists the rankings and scores of EEC in 2012 and Fig. 9.1 displays the EEC scores of the six continents as well as the top three countries of each continent in 2012.

1 Evaluation Results of EEC

According to the evaluation indicator system and the mathematic model of EEC, the evaluation and analysis are made on EEC in 2012. Table 9.1 lists the rankings and scores of EEC in 2012 and Fig. 9.1 displays the EEC scores of the six continents as well as the top three countries of each continent in 2012.

Table 9.1 Scores and rankings of EEC as well as the tertiary and individual indicators in 2012

Fig. 9.1

EEC scores of six continents & top three countries of each continent in 2012

According to Table 9.1, the countries with EEC ranking 1st–10th include Germany, Switzerland, Slovak Republic, Venezuela, RB, Austria, New Zealand, Zambia, Australia, Ecuador and United Kingdom; the 11th–20th rankings are Nicaragua, Botswana, Luxembourg, Brazil, Zimbabwe, Belgium, Poland, France, Japan and Saudi Arabia; the 21st–30th rankings are Lithuania, Netherlands, United States, Italy, Norway, Chile, Czech Republic, Sweden, Israel and Estonia; and the bottom ten countries are China, Iraq, Vietnam, Niger, Pakistan, Cameroon, Sudan, Mali, Bangladesh and India.

In 2012, the highest score of EEC is 73.0 points, the lowest score is 23.8, the average score is 49.1 and the standard deviation is 9.3. The highest score and the lowest score differ greatly with a margin of 49.2 points, the former being 3.1 times the latter. 63 countries score higher than the average point. It indicates that the overall level of EEC is rather high and the differences are rather large among the countries.

The scores of EEC show elliptical distribution. Germany and Switzerland score above 70 points; 16 countries score 60–70; 38 countries score 50–60; 54 countries score 40–50; 21 countries score 30–40; 2 countries 20–30; none scores below 20 points.

The countries with higher EEC are mainly developed countries. Among the 10 countries ranking ahead, 7 are developed countries; among the 20 countries ranking ahead, 12 are developed countries. And, the countries with lower EEC are developing countries.

To compare and analyze the EEC levels of all the countries in a more visual way, the EEC scores are displayed in Fig. 9.2. According to Fig. 9.2, the EEC scores of the countries are concentrated, mostly in 40–70 points (up to 108 countries, accounting for 81.20 % of the total). Among the developed countries, Germany scores the highest, 73.0 points; among the developing countries, Venezuela scores the highest, 68.7 points. They has little difference. However, among the developed countries, United Arab Emirates scores the lowest, 47.1 points; among the developing countries, India scores the lowest, 23.8 points. They have large difference.

Fig. 9.2

Rankings and scores of EEC 2012

2 Factor Scores and Contribution Rates of EEC

Table 9.1 lists the evaluation results of the subordinate indicators of EEC and displays the scores and rankings of 3 pillars and 11 individual indicators of EEC in 2012 so as to analyze the influences of the pillars and individual indicators on EEC of the countries.

On pillars, ecological safeguard enjoys very high standard deviation, hitting 20.1, indicating that this indicator has a large difference among the countries and is the most primary factor causing EEC differences among the countries. The indicator of air quality also has relatively high standard deviation. The indicator of biodiversity has a low standard deviation, only 4.9, contributing little to EEC differences among the countries. Overall, the countries have large differences on the overall levels of EEC. Such differences are mainly caused by the differences of ecological safeguard and air quality, while biodiversity has very little influence. Hereafter, all the countries shall keep on great efforts in ecological safeguard and air quality, to achieve the effective and rapid improvement of EEC and narrow the gap with the other countries, and meanwhile, pay close attention to enhance the competitiveness of biodiversity to accelerate the improvement of EEC.

On individual indicators, index of indoor air pollution enjoys the highest standard deviation, hitting 42.7, indicating that this indicator has the largest difference among the countries and is the most primary factor causing EEC differences among the countries. Terrestrial protected areas and inhalable particles (PM10) also have high standard deviation, 24.9 and 19.3 respectively, also contributing a lot to EEC differences among the countries. The other indicators have low standard deviation, indicating they have little influence on EEC differences among the countries.

To analyze the contribution of the pillars to EEC, firstly multiply the scores of the pillars by respective weights, then convert them into the scores at sub-index and finally divide them by the total score of sub-index to get the contribution rates of the pillars. Thus, we could find the contribution of each pillar to the sub-index more visually, as shown in Fig. 9.3.

Fig. 9.3

Contribution rates of pillars of EEC 2012

According to the figure, air quality and biodiversity have high contribution rates to EEC: the former of 49.6 % and the latter of 35.2 %. The contribution rate of ecological safeguard is relatively lower, 15.2 %. Therefore, to enhance EEC, the countries shall focus specially on air quality and biodiversity, while not ignoring ecological safeguard.