ATLAS · FUSION VIEW
Wealth & Carbon
Income per person as colour, carbon emissions per person as bubbles. The assumption is that wealth and emissions rise together. This map tests it — and the link is looser than most people expect.
COLOUR
GDP per capita
GDP divided by population, current US$, World Bank.
World Bank Open Data · 2024
BUBBLE SIZE
CO₂ per capita
Carbon-dioxide emissions per person, in tonnes, World Bank (IPCC AR5 basis).
World Bank Open Data · 2024
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.
Correlation is measured across the 200countries that have both figures, in each metric’s own scale (log scale where the map uses one). Correlation is not causation — it only measures whether the two tend to track each other.
Deep green is the richest; the largest bubbles are the heaviest per-person emitters. They lean the same way — richer countries do tend to emit more — but far more loosely than the "growth equals pollution" story suggests. Plenty of wealthy countries carry modest bubbles, having decoupled their prosperity from their carbon, while a few fossil-fuel economies emit far more than their income alone would predict. This is the fusion view as myth-test: a real but weak relationship, not the lockstep people assume.
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 | 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.
See each layer on its own
TWO LAYERS, ONE MAP
Try another pairing, or build your own in the live Atlas.