France now ranks first among leading rich and developing nations in renewable energy investments, while the United States dropped two spots on the Group of 20 list due to a pullback in federal government support for such investments, according to the Allianz Climate and Energy Monitor.

France supplanted Germany in the top position due to an overall favorable environment for renewables, Munich-based insurer Allianz SE said Monday in its report, which evaluates policy and market factors critical for attracting renewable energy investments in G-20 countries.

Germany dropped one spot due to a decline in the quality of its overall policy environment for renewables and some deficiencies in policy design, according to the report. The United Kingdom, which is the only country with “a binding, ambitious and concrete long-term decarbonization plan for its power sector” but no formal renewable energy targets that extend beyond 2020, dropped one spot to the third position. Italy and China ranked fourth and fifth, respectively.

“Overall, with four European countries on top of the list, Europe still leads the way in providing attractive conditions for investing in renewables,” the Allianz report stated. “Despite high scores for several countries, no single country is yet close to becoming a role model. All countries still have considerable room for improving investment conditions to deploy renewables at the scale needed to reach Paris targets.”

Current commitments expressed by countries participating in the Paris climate agreement are inadequate to bridge the emissions gap projected for 2030, according to a report released on Tuesday by the United Nations Environment Programme.

“Global peaking of emissions by 2020 is crucial for achieving the temperature targets of the Paris agreement, but the scale and pace of current mitigation action remains insufficient,” the UNEP report said, noting that as a group, the G-20’s greenhouse gas emissions “will not have peaked by 2030 unless there is a rapid increase in ambition and action within the next few years.”

It is still possible to bridge the gap to ensure global warming stays well below 2°C and 1.5°C as featured in the Paris climate agreement, but if these commitments are not increased before 2030, exceeding the 1.5-degree goal can no longer be avoided, according to the UNEP report. The assessment of actions by the G-20 countries indicates that this is has not happened and that global carbon dioxide emissions increased in 2017 after three years of stagnation, the report said.

“Countries know what they signed up for,” said Thomas Liesch, climate integration lead for Allianz based in Munich. “Emissions need to peak by 2020 and they need to halve at 2030 if we want to achieve the 1.5-degree temperature limit. That is what countries signed up for, and if they want to achieve that, they need to set the policy framework and boundaries in a way that can attract the required investments now.”

“Emissions need to be reduced significantly if we want to avoid the unmanageable,” he added.

Brazil improved its ranking significantly, going to eight on the list from 13th due to much-improved conditions for renewables, including scoring in the highest bracket in terms of medium-term certainty of its policy signals, according to the report. Both Brazil and India, which rose one spot from its 11th ranking last year, cracked the top 10 because of the “political momentum” in support of renewable energy investments, Mr. Liesch said.

“Policymakers are dedicated to a long-term plan regarding de-carbonization,” he said, adding that good implementation of supportive renewable energy is also key in these countries. “Your administrative procedures also need to fit. If they are burdensome, it gets tricky.”

But the political push is lacking in certain countries, particularly in Australia, which dropped out of the top 10, and the United States, which fell two spots to ninth on the list and where President Donald Trump announced last year that he would pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement.

“Lack of policy support is not only due to limitations in policy design — in some countries it is the political will that is missing,” the Allianz report stated. “The most prominent examples include the U.S., where the federal government is vocally opposing renewables and imposed an import tariff for solar cells, and Australia, which is heading towards a policy cliff-edge, meaning there will be no policy support for renewables after 2020.”

But strong support for renewables in some U.S. states, a decentralized grid structure and the high number of renewable energy companies remain positive factors in support of renewables despite the federal pullback, according to the report. In addition, the U.S. investment in renewable energy in 2017 totaled $56.9 billion — the second-largest absolute investment in the sector behind China’s $132.6 billion, the report noted, citing data from Bloomberg New Energy Finance.