Evidence for better decisions in Lebanon.

The main source of carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions is the burning of fossil fuels. It is the primary greenhouse gas causing climate change.

Globally, CO₂ emissions have remained at just below 5 tonnes per person for over a decade. Between countries, however, there are large differences, and while emissions are rapidly increasing in some countries, they are rapidly falling in others.

The source for this CO₂ data is the Global Carbon Budget, a dataset we update yearly as soon as it is published. In addition to these production-based emissions, they publish consumption-based emissions for the last three decades, which can be viewed in our Greenhouse Gas Emissions Data Explorer.

What could be more tragic than the death of a young child? Child mortality, the death of children under the age of five, is still extremely common in our world today.

The historical data makes clear that it doesn’t have to be this way: it is possible for societies to protect their children and reduce child mortality to very low rates. For child mortality to reach low levels, many things have to go right at the same time: good healthcare, good nutrition, clean water and sanitation, maternal health, and high living standards. We can, therefore, think of child mortality as a proxy indicator of a country’s living conditions.

The chart shows our long-run data on child mortality, which allows you to see how child mortality has changed in countries around the world.

The UN sets the “International Poverty Line” as a worldwide comparable definition for extreme poverty. Extreme poverty is currently defined as living on less than $3 per day. This indicator, published by the World Bank, has successfully drawn attention to the terrible depths of poverty of the poorest people in the world.

Two centuries ago, the majority of the world’s population was extremely poor. Back then, it was widely believed that widespread poverty was inevitable. This turned out to be wrong. Economic growth is possible and makes it possible for entire societies to leave the deep poverty of the past behind. Whether or not countries are leaving the worst poverty behind can be monitored by relying on this indicator.

Across the world, people are living longer. In 1900, the global average life expectancy of a newborn was 32 years. By 2021, this had more than doubled to 71 years.

Big improvements were achieved by countries around the world. The chart shows that life expectancy has more than doubled in every region of the world. This improvement is not only due to declining child mortality; life expectancy increased at all ages.

This visualization shows long-run estimates of life expectancy brought together by our team from several different data sources. It also shows that the COVID-19 pandemic led to reduced life expectancy worldwide.

Connectivity has transformed how people work, learn and access services. This indicator tracks the share of the population using the Internet over time, revealing both rapid progress and persistent gaps between countries.