Lanka tops US in Happy Planet Index
by Disna Mudalige
Sri Lanka is ahead of the United States and the whole world when considered as one unit, according to the ‘Happy Planet Index’ (HPI) introduced by the New Economic Foundation, Energy Forum Executive Director Asoka Abeygunawardana said.
He was addressing a media awareness program organized by the Green Movement and the Environment Ministry at the ICTAD auditorium Tuesday.
HPI is an index of human well-being and environmental impact. “The two major scales for this index are the happiness of the people and the impact caused to the environment by the acts of people. In this regard, Sri Lanka is far better than many countries, he said.
“Therefore we have the potential to alleviate our financial debt for the environmental debt of the developed world. In this effort, we have the capacity to provide leadership to the developing countries and endangered islands such as Malaysia due to the climate change. Holding the Chairperson position in G15 would be an additional advantage for this task,” he said.
Abeygunawardane said the bad weather that prevailed over the country during the last few weeks. is related to the climate change in the country due to the increased level of green house gases.
“We always find an approximate enemy and criticize, but never see the true fact behind the incident.
This time all criticized the lack of proper drainage systems, but at the same time, it must be noted that no drainage will be sufficient for this kind of intense raining. This weather was an unusual condition happened as a result of the climate change,” he said.
He noted that our aim should be zero emission of green house gases in 2020. The world is experiencing a drastic climate change as a result of high green house emissions, and it has also disturbed the local weather patterns.
(Source: Daily News – 28th May, 2010)