The Best and Worst Places in the World to Live As Climate Changes

 

An index developed at the University of Notre Dame is giving us a glimpse of what countries are the best and worst to live in based on their ability to cope with the impacts of climate change.

The rankings come from the so-called ND-GAIN index, which is based on the vulnerability and readiness of each country to adapt to climate change's impacts.

Vulnerability to climate change is based on six factors: food, water, health, ecosystem service, human habitat and infrastructure. The readiness index is made up of three components: economic readiness, governance readiness and social readiness.

A formula is then used to come up with the overall rating for each country around the world on a scale of 0 to 100. 

All but one of the top five best countries are located in Europe. The United States ranked eighth.

Of the top 10 worst countries, eight are located in Africa.