December 03, 2024
To tackle climate change, the world needs to rapidly reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. But before we reduce emissions, we need to stop them rising; the world needs to pass the peak.
Globally, total CO2 emissions are still slowly increasing. The Global Carbon Project just released its preliminary estimates for 2024, which suggest another 0.8% increase.
However, while total emissions have not yet peaked, emissions per person have. Globally, per capita CO2 emissions from fossil fuels peaked in 2012. When land use emissions — which are more uncertain and noisier — are included, they peaked in the 1970s and have fluctuated since then. You can see both trends in the chart.
This suggests that, globally, lifestyles are slowly decarbonizing. However, to come closer to our global climate targets, economies must decarbonize much faster to push total emissions into decline.
Explore the latest CO2 emissions data in our updated charts →
Yesterday
Artificial intelligence has advanced rapidly over the past 15 years, fueled by the success of deep learning.
A key reason for the success of deep learning systems has been their ability to keep improving with a staggering increase in the inputs used to train them — especially computation.
Before deep learning took off around 2010, the amount of computation used to train notable AI systems doubled about every 21 months. But, as you can see in the chart, this has accelerated significantly with the rise of deep learning, now doubling roughly every six months.
As one example of this pace, compared to AlexNet, the system that represented a breakthrough in computer vision in 2012, Google’s system “Gemini 1.0 Ultra” just 11 years later used 100 million times more training computation.
To put this in perspective, training Gemini 1.0 required roughly the same amount of computation as 50,000 high-end graphics cards working nonstop for an entire year.
Read more about how scaling up inputs has made AI more capable in our new article by Veronika Samborska →
January 20
Moving between continents is less common than moving to another country within the same region. For most people, international migration means crossing a nearby border, rather than a very long distance or even an ocean.
Consider Asia, the world's most populous continent.
When an Asian emigrant leaves their home country, they can either move to another Asian country or head to one of the other five continents.
Data from the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs shows that six out of ten Asian emigrants remain within Asia. In other words, more Asian emigrants move to other Asian countries than to all other continents combined.
European and North American emigrants show an even stronger tendency to stay in their continent, at 70% and 87%, respectively. This share is smaller in Africa and South America, at around half.
While this data aims to include illegal migrants, experts acknowledge the challenges in fully measuring these populations.
Read our full article on how far migrants travel from their home countries →
January 17
In 1991, fewer than 15% of people in Bangladesh had access to electricity. Thirty years later, access was almost universal.
Over 100 million Bangladeshis have gained access to electricity during this time. This enables them to light their homes, use household appliances, or stay connected through phones and the Internet.
The statistic measures the lowest “tier” of energy access: the capacity for basic lighting and charging a phone for at least four hours a day. But more than half the people in Bangladesh now also have a higher tier of electricity access, which means capacity to power high-load appliances (such as fridges) and electricity for more than eight hours a day.
The UN has set a target to achieve universal access to electricity by 2030. Currently, about 9 in 10 people worldwide have basic access to electricity.
You can explore the progress in other countries in our SDG Tracker here →
January 16
Global cement production grew rapidly through the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s. In the decade from 2003 to 2013 alone, production doubled from 2 to 4 billion tonnes.
But, as you can see in the chart, this growth has stalled in the last 10 years. There has been some variation from year to year, but overall, global production has stayed around 4 billion tonnes. This data comes from the United States Geological Survey (USGS).
China was a significant driver of global growth in the 1990s and 2000s but has also reached a plateau in production. It now produces more than half of the world’s cement.
Cement production makes up around 7% of global CO2 emissions.
Explore global trends in other metals and minerals in our data explorer →
January 15
Some countries take in far more refugees than others relative to their population.
A refugee is defined by the UN as someone needing international protection, who has fled their home country and whose home country’s government cannot or will not protect them.
This chart shows the cumulative number of refugees per 1,000 people in the country where they live as of 2023.
There are huge differences between countries: Lebanon hosts 137 refugees for every 1,000 residents — over four times as many as Germany (31) or Poland (25). Those numbers are still much higher than the Netherlands (13) and France (10), far above the United States at just 1.2 refugees per 1,000 residents.
These differences reflect conflicts in neighboring regions and national policies welcoming or deterring refugees.
Explore the number of refugees per 1,000 people for more destination countries →
January 14
The experience of poverty goes far beyond having no or low income. Unfortunately, still in many countries today, a large share of people experience severe poverty in many areas of life, such as health, education, and living standards.
To capture this broader reality, researchers from the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative and the UN Development Programme developed the global Multidimensional Poverty Index. This group of indicators measures poverty across essential areas of well-being, capturing whether people are undernourished, whether they lost a child, and lack access to education or basic facilities like clean water or electricity.
The map shows the share of the population in each country living in multidimensional poverty, highlighting where households face overlapping deprivations.
In countries across South America and some in East Asia, this share is less than 10%. But in many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, more than half of the people experience these extreme conditions. The share even exceeds 4 in 5 people in Niger (91%), Chad (84%), and the Central African Republic (80%).
These figures are based on data from over 100 countries drawn from household surveys conducted between 2011 and 2023.
Read more on our article: Beyond income: understanding poverty through the Multidimensional Poverty Index →
January 13
The number of children in the world has stopped growing. This moment in time was given the term “peak child” by the late Hans Rosling.
The chart shows the estimated number of children under five years old globally up to 2023, with projections from the United Nations out to 2100. The UN thinks the number of under-5s peaked in 2017.
The chart also shows the number of young people under 15, which peaked in 2021. And the number of under-25s, which may have peaked last year.
“Peak child” is a sign that the world is on course for “peak population”. The UN expects the world population to start falling before the end of the century.
Read more about the key insights from the latest UN World Population Prospects →
