EarthCharts

Reliable Information About Planet Earth

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COVID-19

Coronavirus Deaths by Country

This chart showing death rates from COVID-19 can be used to compare the spread of Coronavirus in different countries

Since first appearing in China at the end of 2019, Coronavirus Disease has spread to countries around the world, to become a global pandemic. Comparing confirmed numbers of cases between countries is problematic as different countries have different criteria for testing suspected cases. Death rates can be compared between countries, and provide an indicator of the spread of the disease and its impact on a country’s healthcare system. There is a substantial time-lag between infections and deaths, so the numbers of deaths provide a picture of the prevalence of the disease several weeks previously.

Assigning the date when the number of deaths in a country reach a certain threshold as day ‘0’ allows the graphs for each country to be aligned. The curves for different countries can then be compared, and inferences can be made about the prevalence of the disease in different countries and the effectiveness of social distancing measures.

Data

ECDC 1

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References

  1. ECDC, ‘Download Today’s Data on the Geographic Distribution of COVID-19 Cases Worldwide’ (European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, 2020) https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/publications-data/download-todays-data-geographic-distribution-covid-19-cases-worldwide [↩]

12 tonnes

Global Material Consumption

In 2015 global material consumption was an average of 12 tonnes of material for each person on Earth

Data

Material Consumption: WU Vienna1

GDP: World Bank2

Population: World Bank3

Economic activity is usually measured in monetary units. But economic activity involves throughputs of matter and energy, thus the economy also has physical dimensions. 4. Economic activities involve the extraction of material resources and emissions of wastes, and these both generate environmental impacts.

The graph above shows the increasing annual global material extraction per person for every year since 1970. The graph below shows the total global extraction of materials, divided into four categories. In 2015 the global extraction of materials was 87.5 billion tonnes, or a staggering 11.98 tonnes per capita.

Economic growth tends to cause an increase in environmental impacts (Krugman and Wells, 2015: 708). Orthodox economics acknowledges assumes that economic growth can be sustained indefinitely. This requires either assuming that the size of the economy is far from any ecological limits, or that economic growth can be decoupled from growth in environmental impact. The two graphs show the difficulties of these assumptions. The physical quantity of resources used by an economy is a good indicator of environmental impact (Hickel and Kallis, 2018: 1). The physical size of the global economy is vast, and this inevitably generates significant consequences for the environment.

The environmental impact of economic activity can be modelled using the Ehrlich equation, which can be simply written as:

I = P x A x T

where I is impact, P is population, A is affluence, and T is the technological intensity of output.

If environmental impacts are not to increase, then increases in any of the three factors must be offset by decreases in another. The concept of ‘green growth’ implies that GDP growth and environmental impacts can be decoupled, and the economy can grow without an increase in environmental impacts. This means that if environmental impacts are not to increase technological intensity (T) must fall faster than the GDP grows (P x A).

As the top graph shows, material consumption per $ of global GDP, or the ‘material intensity’ of the economy has fallen by about 14% since 1970. However this has been far from sufficient to offset the growth in population and affluence which led to the world economy quadrupling in size over the same period.

  1. WU Vienna, ‘Domestic Extraction of World in 1970-2017’, The Material Flows Analysis Portal (WU Vienna, 2019) http://www.materialflows.net/visualisation-centre/ [accessed 23 February 2020] [↩]
  2. World Bank, ‘World Bank Open Data: GDP (Constant 2010 US$)’ (The World Bank) https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD [accessed 23 February 2020] [↩]
  3. World Bank, ‘World Bank Open Data: Population, Total’ (The World Bank, 2019) https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL [accessed 11 July 2019] [↩]
  4. Daly, Herman, Beyond Growth: The Economics of Sustainable Development (Boston, Mass.: Beacon Press, 1996) p.47 [↩]

Emissions Sources

Creative Commons License

Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions by Sector

Global greenhouse gas emissions can be attributed to different sectors of the economy. This provides a picture of the varying contributions of different types of economic activity to global warming, and helps in understanding the changes required to mitigate climate change.

Data

Emissions from combustion of fuels: IEA1 .

Other emissions: Climate Watch2.

Manmade greenhouse gas emissions can be divided into those that arise from the combustion of fuels to produce energy, and those generated by other processes. Around two thirds of greenhouse gas emissions arise from the combustion of fuels 2 .

Energy may be produced at the point of consumption, or by a generator for consumption by others. Thus emissions arising from energy production may categorised according to where they are emitted, or where the resulting energy is consumed. If emissions are attributed at the point of production, then electricity generators contribute about 25% of global greenhouse gas emissions 3 . If these emissions are attributed to the final consumer then 24% of total emissions arise from manufacturing and construction, 17% from transportation, 11% from domestic consumers, and 7% from commercial consumers. Around 4% of emissions arise from the energy consumed by the energy and fuel industry itself 1 .

The remaining third of emissions arise from processes other than energy production. 12% of total emissions arise from agriculture, 7% from land use change and forestry, 6% from industrial processes, and 3% from waste2 . Around 6% of emissions are fugitive emissions, which are waste gases released by the extraction of fossil fuels.

A version of this content was contributed to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas) on 6 March 2020.

  1. IEA, CO2 Emissions from Fuel Combustion 2018: Highlights (Paris: International Energy Agency, 2018) p.101 [↩] [↩]
  2. Climate Watch, ‘Climate Watch: Historical GHG Emissions, Sectors’ (Climate Watch, 2020) https://www.climatewatchdata.org/ghg-emissions?breakBy=sector&chartType=area§ors=846%2C849%2C845%2C848%2C847%2C853%2C850%2C855%2C854%2C852%2C851 (accessed 5 March 2020) [↩] [↩] [↩]
  3. IEA, CO2 Emissions from Fuel Combustion 2018: Highlights (Paris: International Energy Agency, 2018) p.98 [↩]

1.1°C

Observed Global Warming

In 2016 average global temperatures reached 1.1°C above the pre-industrial average.

Data

Met Office.1 

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Average global temperatures have been on an upward trend since the beginning of the 20th century. 2016 was a record high, with average global temperatures reaching 1.1°C above the 1850-1900 average. 2019 was the second warmest year on record at 1.05°C above the 1850-1900 average. Every year since 2001 has been warmer than any year of the 20th century, apart from 1998.

Over the past 40 years, each decade has been warmer than the previous one, with temperatures increasing by about 0.2°C per decade.

Data

As previous chart.

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References

  1. Met Office, ‘HadCRUT4 Dataset: Global Annual Average near-Surface Temperature Anomalies’ (Met Office, 2020) <https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcrut4/data/current/time_series/HadCRUT.4.6.0.0.annual_ns_avg.txt> (accessed 16 January 2020). [↩]

55%

Changing Global Land Use

55% of the Earth’s ice-free land is used for human agriculture and settlements.

Data

Ellis et al. 1

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References

  1. Ellis, Erle C, Kees Klein Goldewijk, Stefan Siebert, Deborah Lightman, and Navin Ramankutty, ‘Anthropogenic Transformation of the Biomes, 1700 to 2000’, Global Ecology and Biogeography, 19.5 (2010), 589–606 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1466-8238.2010.00540.x [↩]

47Gt

Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions

In 2015 annual global greenhouse gas emissions reached 47GtCO2e.

Data

Greenhouse Gas Emissions – Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research1 

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In 2015 global anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions were about 47 GtCO2e, or 50GtCO2e including emissions from Land Use, Land Use Change, and Forestry (LULUCF). The majority of emissions (75% of total emissions) consist of CO2, and most of these are generated by burning of fuels (62% of total emissions).

References

  1. Gütschow, Johannes, Louise Jeffery, Robert Gieseke, and Ronja Gebel, ‘The PRIMAP-Hist National Historical Emissions Time Series (1850-2015). V.1.2.’ (Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, 2018) https://doi.org/10.5880/pik.2019.001 [↩]