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Costa Rica: World's happiest place

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-07-06 13:48

BEIJING: Costa Rica earned the name of "the happiest place" in the world for its most content people, ecological footprint and life expectancy, according to a new Happy Planet Index (HPI) published on Saturday.

Costa Rica's beach is shown in this undated file photo. [Xinhua]

The "Happy Planet Index" seeking countries with the most content people and tiny carbon footprint was conducted by an independent research group in Britain.

"Costa Ricans report the highest life satisfaction in the world and have the second-highest average life expectancy of the new world (second to Canada)," the organization said.

Among the total 143 countries surveyed, Costa Rica stands out for the highest levels of reported life satisfaction, a long life expectancy of 78.5 years and 99 percent of its energy coming from renewable sources.

Latin American nations generally fare well, taking up nine of the top 10 spots, and Sub-Saharan Africa performs very badly, with Zimbabwe taking bottom place. It scores 16.6 out of 100, compared with Costa Rica's HPI total of 76.1.

Somewhere in between are the world's wealthiest economies.

Compared with 20 years ago when it was greener and happier than it is today, the United States snagged the 114th spot, because of its hefty consumption and massive ecological footprint, the report said.

While leaders of the developed world attending G8 talks in Italy tried to find way to salvage world economy out of recession, the HPI said it may provide food for thinking as to whether wealth can truly buy happiness.

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The aim, said Nic Marks of the New Economic Foundation, was "to break the spell" and work towards "a high well-being, low-carbon economy before our high-consuming lifestyles plunge us into the chaos of irreversible climate change."

First published in 2006 as "a radical departure from our current obsession with GDP," the HPI takes three separate indicators - ecological footprint, life-satisfaction and life-expectancy - and then carries out complex calculations.

The report, which was first conducted in 2006, covers 99 percent of the world population.