The Environmental Performance Index (EPI) ranks how well countries perform on high-priority environmental issues in two broad policy areas: protection of human health from environmental harm and protection of ecosystems. Within these two policy objectives the EPI scores country performance in nine issue areas (including climate change and energy) comprised of 20 indicators. Indicators in the EPI measure how close countries are to meeting internationally established targets or, in the absence of agreed-upon targets, how they compare to the range of observed countries.