An old promise is increasingly central to India’s rise as an economic and geopolitical power: rapid development can go hand in hand with environmental sustainability. The most recent Environmental Performance Index (EPI) presents a far more dismal image. The 2026 EPI ranks India 176th out of 177 countries with a score of 22.46 out of 100. Only one country is ranked lower: Laos. More importantly, India is ranked at the bottom among the eight South Asian countries ranked by the index. Bhutan stands at 52nd place, Sri Lanka at 94th, Nepal at 128th, Afghanistan at 135th, Pakistan at 157th, the Maldives at 171st, and Bangladesh at 175th. India’s score regionally is also much lower than South Asia’s average of 31.81.

This ranking should not be considered just another international league table. Nor should it be viewed as a definitive ranking of India’s environmental performance. But it points to a contradiction that India can no longer afford to ignore: it has made concrete strides in some areas of its energy transition, even as it struggles with the environmental conditions that are at the heart of daily life.

The problem is bigger than the number 176.

Developed by Yale and Columbia researchers, the 2026 EPI ranks 177 countries on 47 indicators across 12 issue areas, including environmental health, ecosystem vitality, and climate change mitigation. India’s overall score conceals some big differences. In terms of environmental health, India is at a very low 174th position, scoring 15.13. This category’s air-quality ranking is 175th, with a score of only 7.89. Carbon monoxide exposure is ranked 175th, and ozone exposure is 173rd. This is important because environmental degradation in India is no longer an abstract ecological issue. It’s becoming a significant public health, productivity, and quality of life issue.

India’s cities are known for their polluted air, but in the countryside the country experiences a different kind of stress: the combination of water and fuel stress, ecological deterioration, and agricultural stress. The EPI therefore raises an important question that is often ignored in the growth debate in India: What does economic growth mean if environmental costs are systematically externalized to citizens? A roadway, industrial corridor, or urban growth could add to GDP. But whatever its external costs—polluted air, tainted water, lost biodiversity, or heat stress—the development model successfully passes part of its bill onto society.

Climate progress is not the same as environmental progress.

There’s a second important nuance in the EPI data. India has performed much better on climate change mitigation than on environmental health. It ranks 130th in the world for climate change mitigation, with a score of 28.01, and has improved its score by around 14 points over the last 10 years. We must not forget that progress. India has rapidly expanded its solar and wind capacity, stressed non-fossil fuels for electricity generation, electrified large parts of its railroad network, and set ambitious long-term climate goals. The country’s rise of renewable energy is one of the biggest energy transition stories in the developing world. However, the EPI clarifies that the existing renewable capacity cannot be considered a proxy of environmental success.

India scores zero on greenhouse-gas performance, but its 2050 emissions forecast is patchy. It ranks 135th in CO₂ emissions trends and 150th in NO₂ emissions trends. It is an unpleasant lesson, but an important one: a country can be a major market for renewable energy without being an environmentally healthy one. The energy and environmental transitions are linked but not the same. Solar panels can reduce the carbon intensity of electricity. They don’t clean the air of a city automatically. Wind turbines reduce dependence on fossil fuels. Wetlands are not regenerated by them. Electric vehicles can reduce pollution from exhaust. They don't reduce urban congestion, resource extraction, or waste. Thus, the policy issue in India is moving from a narrow interpretation of the green transition, which was mainly about energy and carbon, to a wider one that includes public health, ecosystems, resource efficiency, and environmental justice.

Biodiversity is the other warning sign

There’s good news and bad news on India’s pollution: the Rank Country Biodiversity and Habitat Score is 174.9. The EPI’s biodiversity assessment covers everything from protected-area representation and connectivity to species conservation, habitat integrity, and ecosystem resilience. Especially for a country that claims to be one of the most diversified in the world. There are several global biodiversity hotspots and a variety of ecosystems in India, such as the Himalayan landscapes and the Western Ghats, mangroves, grasslands, forests, wetlands, and marine environments. But the demands on these systems are growing. Infrastructure development, mining, urbanization, industrialization, and agricultural intensification are all contributing to a growing conflict between land for economic activity and land for ecological stability.

This is where environmental governance wins over environmental discourse. The issue is not whether India should build highways, ports, renewable energy projects, or industrial corridors. It has to, by all means. The question is where these projects are, whose interests decide their location, how we determine ecological costs, and who pays them. On paper, a cost-effective development project may be economically productive but destroy a key habitat. Once you factor in the ecological services, disaster protection, water security, and livelihoods, the calculation changes quite dramatically.

The South Asian environmental crisis is a common one

Further, the position of India has to be seen as part of the entire South Asian region. The region as a whole is doing poorly. Bangladesh ranks 175th, Maldives 171st, and Pakistan 157th. Nepal fares much better at 128th, while Sri Lanka and Bhutan are regional standouts at 94th and 52nd, respectively. This highlights an important fact: the environmental issues in India are inextricably intertwined with the structural problems of South Asia. The region is among those most vulnerable to climate change globally. Its member nations share river basins, airsheds, mountain ecosystems, coastal zones, and ever more integrated energy markets. Pollution knows no boundaries.

The same is true of climate change. Thus, the Himalayan region connects biological and hydrological systems of multiple countries. The Bay of Bengal connects the environmental futures of India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives. Air pollution does not recognize borders, and the common threats are high temperatures, floods, cyclones, and rising sea levels. This will require South Asia to move from isolated country environmental policy to regional environmental governance. Cross-border air pollution monitoring, coordinated climate adaptation measures, regional disaster risk systems, river basin cooperation, and enhanced transboundary ecosystem preservation could all become as crucial to South Asian security as traditional diplomacy.

But can the EPI tell the whole story?

The disclaimer is valid. The value of environmental rankings depends entirely on their indicators, datasets, and methods. India has in the past disputed the methodology used by the EPI, saying that some of the indicators and assumptions do not accurately represent its environmental performance and development context. Similar concerns have been raised over the difficulty in comparing countries with very different economic structures, data availability, and historical obligations. The EPI alone provides a partial picture of environmental performance. A big population and a growing economy pose a different kind of environmental problem than that of a small, wealthy European state. Resource-intensive growth has been the norm in richer countries, and some have even been able to outsource some of their production and environmental footprint. The authors of the 2026 EPI recognize that the ranking may be reflecting differences in wealth and institutional capacity across countries. So, India’s 176th rank should not be seen as a complete assessment of the country’s environmental policies.

But the methodological limitations do not eliminate the underlying problems. When an indicator places India at the bottom of the list on air quality and biodiversity, these are not mere statistical abstractions. They reflect the environmental conditions Indians are up against every day.

The greater contradiction.

Perhaps the most startling discovery in the 2026 EPI is India’s 176th position. It says the 10-year EPI score of India has improved by 7.47 points, yet the country is still second bottom globally. This suggests progress is being made, but not at the scale or speed required to move India’s relative position. This is an important distinction. India needs more than green policies to meet its environmental issues. This refers to the incorporation of environmental factors into the basic framework of economic decision-making. Environmental control cannot be an afterthought in the conceptualization of an infrastructure project. Ecological costs must be taken into account from the very first stage of the project design.

Delhi’s air pollution cannot be seen as a seasonal issue. This should be addressed through transport policy, industrial regulation, energy systems, agricultural standards, construction, and urban planning. Biodiversity cannot be confined to the establishment of protected areas while biological pathways outside them remain fractured. Climate policy cannot be separated from the questions of work, housing, transportation, public health, and access to energy.

Ranking responsibility

India does not need to pursue the EPI rating to improve its position on the global leaderboard. It must improve the environmental conditions that the ranking attempts, however inadequately, to measure. This will require better environmental data, stronger monitoring agencies, transparent enforcement, scientifically credible impact assessments, and more accountability for environmental damage. It also advocates for a more decentralized approach with states, cities, panchayats, and local people actively participating in environmental decision-making. Most importantly, India’s green transition has to be a people-centered transition. A country’s environmental performance is best judged not by the number of solar panels it installs or the number of global climate pledges it makes. It’s about whether its residents can breathe clean air, drink safe water, live in climate-resilient cities, rely on functioning ecosystems, and have a meaningful voice in decisions that change their landscape.

India’s 176th rank should therefore not be seen as a national shame or a number to be shrugged off. This should be taken as a developmental warning. Environmental deterioration cannot be the hidden cost of prosperity for a country that wants to be a leading economy in the world. The real challenge of the next phase of development for India is whether it can make economic growth and environmental security complements rather than substitutes. Until then, the gap between India’s aspirations and its environmental reality will be one of the country’s most important development challenges.