Monday, December 11, 2023

The Carbon Bomb Map

A 'Carbon bomb' is a large-scale fossil fuel extraction project that has the potential to release massive amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, thereby significantly contributing to climate change. These massively environmentally damaging projects usually involve the exploitation of oil reserves, coal mines, or natural gas fields.

There are currently 425 fossil fuel extraction projects around the world that will generate more than one gigatonne of CO₂ (1 GtCO₂) during their operation. According to Carbon for Good these 425 carbon bombs will together release over twice the maximum amount of carbon dioxide (CO₂ ) that humanity can release into the atmosphere while still having a chance of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

The CarbonBombs interactive map shows the locations of the 425 current carbon bomb projects, owned by fossil fuel companies around the world. The size of each carbon bomb's marker on the map is determined by the amount of GtCO₂ (gigatonnes of carbon dioxide) the project will generate during its operation.
The footprintMap is another interactive map of carbon emissions, however this map visualizes the CO₂ footprint of individual countries around the world. Using the map you can discover the per capita CO₂ output of each country and see which countries contribute the most and least to global heating. 

According to this map Singapore has the highest per capita CO₂ footprint of any country. The United States has the 9th highest per capita CO₂ footprint of the 118 countries featured on the map. Malawi, Uganda and Rwanda (respectively) have the lowest per capita CO₂ footprint of the 118 countries mapped. 

The carbon data for the map comes from the BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2022 and the Global Carbon Budget 2022. The population and GDP data used on the map is derived from the Worldbank.

No comments: