ATLAS · FUSION VIEW
Emissions & Renewables
Carbon per person as colour, the renewable share of energy as bubbles. You’d expect the greenest-energy countries to be the lowest emitters — this map shows how far that holds, and where it surprisingly does not.
COLOUR
CO₂ per capita
Carbon-dioxide emissions per person, in tonnes, World Bank (IPCC AR5 basis).
World Bank Open Data · 2024
BUBBLE SIZE
Renewable Energy
Renewable share of total final energy consumption, World Bank.
World Bank Open Data · 2022
How strongly do they move together?
Across the 203 countries with both figures, co₂ per capita and renewable energy move in opposite directions a weak amount — as one rises, the other tends to fall (correlation r = -0.35). 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.
Correlation is measured across the 203countries that have both figures, in each metric’s own scale. Correlation is not causation — it only measures whether the two tend to track each other.
Deepest green marks the heaviest per-person emitters; the biggest bubbles mark the most renewable-powered energy systems. The two pull in opposite directions — high-renewable countries tend to sit on paler, lower-emission ground. But the relationship is noisier than it looks: some of the largest renewable bubbles belong to lower-income countries leaning on traditional biomass rather than wind and solar, a reminder that "renewable" and "low-carbon-and-modern" are not always the same thing.
Who fits the pattern — and who breaks it
Two ways to read the map. On the left, the countries that most clearly follow the relationship; on the right, the ones that most defy it — the exceptions worth a closer look.
| Country | CO₂ / capita | Renewables % |
|---|---|---|
| Burkina Faso | 0.27 | 71.4% |
| Fiji | 1.62 | 28.4% |
| Saudi Arabia | 18.5 | 0.1% |
| Oman | 18.7 | 0.1% |
| Papua New Guinea | 0.52 | 54.6% |
| Pakistan | 0.81 | 41.6% |
| Country | CO₂ / capita | Renewables % |
|---|---|---|
| American Samoa | 0.00 | 0.4% |
| Northern Mariana Islands | 0.00 | 0.5% |
| Nauru | 0.00 | 1.9% |
| Micronesia, Fed. Sts. | 0.00 | 2.0% |
| Iceland | 8.52 | 82.4% |
| Tuvalu | 0.00 | 5.2% |
Understand the underlying numbers
See each layer on its own
TWO LAYERS, ONE MAP
Try another pairing, or build your own in the live Atlas.