ATLAS · COMPARE
Wealth & Carbon
Does getting richer always mean emitting more carbon per person — or can a country break the link?
Watch whether getting richer really does mean burning more carbon. The cloud tilts up to the right because the two move together — that’s the shape of a weak correlation.
The two, blended into one map
Same data, a different read. Instead of one metric as colour and the other as bubbles, the two blend: each country is shaded by where it falls on both at once — so the map shows where gdp per capita and co₂ per capita are high together, and where they pull apart.
How strongly do they move together?
Across the 200 countries with both figures, gdp per capita and co₂ per capita move together a weak amount — as one rises, so does the other (correlation r = 0.39). That’s a weak pattern: the two are related, but only loosely, so any single country can easily buck the trend — a good reminder that a fusion view can puncture an assumption as well as confirm one.
Measured across the 200countries that have both figures, in each metric’s own scale (log scale where the map uses one). The scatter morph above plots these same countries; the dashed line is their best fit. Correlation is not causation — it only measures whether the two tend to track each other.
This is the compare view as myth-test. People assume wealth and carbon move in lockstep; the blend shows the link is real but loose — plenty of rich, low-carbon countries (green-leaning) sit beside rich, high-carbon ones (toward teal), and a few fossil-fuel economies emit far more than their income predicts. In Scatter the dots drift up to the right but scatter widely around the trend — a genuine relationship, not the tight one the story implies.
Who fits the pattern — and who breaks it
On the scatter, the rule-followers sit tight to the dashed line; the rule-breakers fly far from it. On the left, the countries that most clearly follow the relationship; on the right, the ones that most defy it.
| Country | GDP / capita | CO₂ / capita |
|---|---|---|
| Chad | $962 | 0.14 |
| Samoa | $5.4K | 1.60 |
| Vanuatu | $3.4K | 0.87 |
| Rwanda | $1,000 | 0.16 |
| Guinea-Bissau | $1K | 0.16 |
| Uganda | $1.1K | 0.17 |
| Country | GDP / capita | CO₂ / capita |
|---|---|---|
| Faroe Islands | $74.1K | 0.04 |
| Virgin Islands (U.S.) | $44.3K | 0.00 |
| Guam | $41.8K | 0.00 |
| Northern Mariana Islands | $23.8K | 0.00 |
| American Samoa | $18K | 0.00 |
| Nauru | $13.6K | 0.00 |
Understand the underlying numbers
ATLAS · FIELD GUIDE
GDP per Capita, and Why It Isn't the Same as How Rich People Are
GDP per capita is the standard yardstick for comparing how wealthy countries are — but it's an average that hides as much as it reveals. A plain-language guide to what it measures, why 'current US dollars' makes some comparisons misleading, and how to read the world map of it without overreaching.
ATLAS · FIELD GUIDE
Per-Person Emissions vs Total Emissions: Reading the Carbon Map Fairly
Whether a country is a big polluter depends entirely on which question you ask. A plain-language guide to the difference between CO₂ per capita and total emissions, why the two maps look completely different, and how to read per-person carbon honestly.
Keep exploring
GEOGRAPHY ↔ DATA
Try another pairing — watch the whole world rearrange itself by the numbers.