New Zealand has been given a scathing report card from the Climate Change Performance Index.

The country's ranking has fallen from 35th to a lowly 42nd out of 58 this year - just five places ahead of China.

While New Zealand scored better for renewable energy, it ranked in the bottom five for climate change policy.

The ranking list was released at the Paris climate change conference.

It measures factors such as emissions levels per capita, deployment of renewable energy, and the energy intensity of the economy.

Top five countries*:

4. Denmark

5. UK

6.Sweden

7. Belgium

8. France

* The top three places are empty as the report's authors say no country is doing enough to prevent dangerous climate change.

Bottom five countries:

57. Korea

58. Japan

59: Australia

60. Kazakhstan