I was quite excited while visiting this UN site: data.un.org. You’ll find a huge amount of figures provided by different UN agencies. The data is free to use, ready to download and presented by a slick WEB2.0 interface. Of cource data from the UNFCCC is there as well as from the american Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC).
The latter provides a data set with CO2 emissions from more than 200 countries ranging from 1980 to 2004. I’ve jumped at this chance and started to develop google maps overlayed with colored countries. SVG was a dead-end, so the next question was how to generate tiles without having any record in hand painting.
GMapCreator was developed by the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA) at University College London under the GeoVUE (Geographic Virtual Urban Environments) project which is funded as one of the research nodes of the National Centre for eSocial Science (NCeSS).
In short it picks a shape file, let you colorize the polygons according to their attributes and renders all the tiles down to the level you specify. The world borders shape file from thematicmapping.org (credits to: Bjorn Sandvik, Schuyler Erle, Sean Gilles) was the best solution for this job. The simple version has enough points for a use with level 4. Btw: Quantum GIS is an excellent application for beginners.
Since human senses use logarithmic scales this is the way the map was designed. Also it is easier to distinguish different shades of green than blue. The values correspond to metric kilo tons of CO2.
Blue means no data, countries with an output over one billion tons are colored with dark red. Within these color groups GMapCreator shades the countries according to their past emissions. As a rule of thumb you may say the countries in the orange group emitted 10 times more C02 than the yellow countries.
At first sight the information provided by this interactive map is little: huge countries emit more C02 compared to smaller countries. But given the scale factor it indicates the countries with the most potential to fight Climate Change. Nevertheless the next map in this series will visualize emissions per capita and the United States will then - together with some litte arabian countries - lead this unreasonable competition.
However, this is not the end of this story. CO2 resides for approximatly 100 years in the atmosphere, so taken into account historical emissions will answer the question whose emissions are still heating the planet. Can responsibility-based politics really ignore past emissions?
Stay tuned on this channel.
One Response to “New Map Layer : C02 Emissions per Country 2004”
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August 19th, 2008 at 08:38
Hi, first of all let me compliment you on the very cool map. I must say, I was quite surprised to see how many countries that are represented in the high end of the scale regarding CO2 emission. One can only hope that matters are being taken care of to reduce the CO2 levels.
Also, I have been doing some compiling myself within this subject. I have found a set of data on SUV Co2 emission from Swivel.com and a friend of mine built the widget below - using this data.
http://www.youcalc.com/apps/1217583034988?application_popup=1
This Widget shows, among other things, how much CO2 a given engine size emits on the highway. That data was really surprising to me…
I am of the impression that you have similar interests as me when it comes to calculating on and visualizing data.
My friend is creating his widgets with a tool called youcalc.com. He finds it easy to use, because of three step process; add data source, crunch data and lastly visualize the data - just the way he wants it. You might want to have a look at the site?
Keep up the good work.
John