America currently
ranks at the bottom of a list of top 40 global
economies for the percentage of goods and services exported, which is about 13.5 percent of gross domestic
product.
Looking at global trends in R&D investments, Kei Koizumi, a visiting scholar at AAAS, then noted that the investment picture is mixed: The United States
ranks 10th in the world in terms of the percentage of the nation's
economy, measured by the gross domestic
product, that is devoted to R&D investments, yet the nation still holds the top spot for the total expenditures on R&D projects.
But their high
ranking is also a
product of the vulnerability of the population and the inadequacies of existing infrastructure to adapt to or tackle climate change challenges because of weak
economies, governance, education and health care.