CO2 Emissions Around the World
Climate change is happening all around us. It encompasses rising temperatures referred to as global warming, extreme weather events, shifting wildlife populations and habitats, and rising seas. Scientists describe it as the complex shifts, driven by greenhouse gas concentrations, that are now affecting our planet’s weather and climate systems. CO2, carbon dioxide is a big contributor to greenhouse emissions. It is responsible for three-quarters of emissions and can linger in the atmosphere for thousands of years.
Using data gotten from MakeoverMonday Tag at data.world, I set out to create visualizations in Tableau to check out this trend in CO2 emissions over the 25-year period from 1990–2016. What countries were responsible for the biggest chunk of emissions during this period?
CO2 emissions have been on an increase over the years and is still on the increase. According to Our World in Data, Emissions have continued to grow rapidly, we now emit over 36 billion tonnes each year.
We can calculate the contribution of the average citizen of each country by dividing its total emissions by its population. This gives us CO2 emissions per capita. This dataset gives the CO2 emissions in metric tonnes per capita.
More populous countries can be seen to have the highest per capita emissions. China, United States, India and Russia can be seen from the map above as having the highest per capita CO2 emissions. Many countries across Europe, for example, have much lower emissions than the US, Russia or China. Higher standard of living, clear policy and technological choices on energy sources can be attributed to this. Poorer countries particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa such as Chad, Niger and the Central African Republic also have lower emissions. There are very large inequalities in per capita emissions across the world.
Leading the pack of countries is China. China has emitted 11,208 metric tons of CO2 between 1990–2016. This is almost twice that of the United States which comes in second, India, Russia and Brazil make up the top five of countries with the most CO2 emissions in metric tons over the years ranging 1990–2016. It can be seen that these countries coincide as countries with relatively high human population which is a huge factor in CO2 emissions.
The CO2 Emissions around the world have been on a steady increase over the past 30 years. This can be attributed to the increase in population which in turn leads to an increase in air pollution from the activities carried out by the members of the population. As at 2016, around 41,000 metric tonnes of CO2 had been emitted into the atmosphere. This figure is on a steady rise and could spell disaster for the planet at large, if measures are not put in place to curb air pollution particularly CO2 emissions.
Population growth has been one of the major driving forces behind increasing carbon dioxide emissions worldwide over the last two decades. Research shows that a 1% increase in population leads to a 2.73% increase in carbon dioxide emissions. More people means more demand for oil, gas, coal and other fuels mined or drilled from below the Earth’s surface that, when burned, spew enough carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere to trap warm air inside like a greenhouse.
The accompanying dashboard for this piece can be found here. You can connect with me on LinkedIn and Twitter in case of any questions or interesting ideas to share with me. Happy Reading!!!.
References
- Nunez, C. (2021, May 3). Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is at a record high. Here’s what you need to know. Environment. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/greenhouse-gases.
- Scientific American. (2009, July 29). Does Population Growth Impact Climate Change? Scientific American. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/population-growth-climate-change/.
