In the four-monthly review of Team GB's preparations, badminton and handball were the only two sports to get "reds" in a traffic-light rating system.
"I'm not at all surprised - this should have come two years ago," said Emms.
"They should have had a complete overhaul after the Beijing Olympics and started from scratch.
The sport has faced off the court a miserable year when badminton became the only summer Olympics sport to have its funding reduced in December.
That £540,000 cut was made by UK Sport, the agency that distributes lottery and public money to elite sport, and it was UK Sport's "Mission 2012" review process that flagged up badminton's worrying prognosis.
A UK Sport official told BBC Sport this was effectively a "cry for help" from within badminton and steps are being taken to get the programme moving forward again -
"Performance at an elite level requires open and honest self assessment from top to bottom," said Adrian Christy, Badminton England
"The Mission 2012 process facilitates this level of frank critical analysis and our determination to achieve was evidenced by the fact we chose to rate our system as red in October of last year.
"We have fully grasped the opportunity to work with UK Sport to find creative and sustainable solutions to the challenges we face. We are under no illusions; this is not going to be a quick fix.
For Emms, this is level of honesty is encouraging but it could have come sooner if badminton, which was originally handed a 2012 budget of £8.63m by UK Sport, had been more realistic.
"The sport is in a bit of a state now, which is sad," she said.
"It's a shame that a sport didn't feel it could be more honest about its prospects. There is talent in the system but we've wasted two years."****************************************************
