Countries contribute to climate change differently and experience it differently. We tracked five signals across fifteen countries for twenty-three years to ask: are the countries building clean energy actually cutting emissions, and what have two decades of climate impacts looked like in the meantime?
Before we look at emissions or renewables, let's establish the baseline: temperatures are rising. But by how much, averaged across these fifteen countries?
Each country's raw temperature is stripped of its baseline — what remains is the change relative to 2000. Zero means no warmer than 2000. Drag to sketch your prediction, then reveal the actual signal.
To understand whether the energy transition is working, we first need to understand how different these countries are: in climate, in emissions, and in how much the ocean has already risen around them.
These are the annual mean temperatures for all fifteen countries from Berkeley Earth. Russia and Canada sit well below freezing; Brazil and India above 25°C. The spread is nearly 30°C, which is why warming is always measured as change from a baseline, not as an absolute. That baseline comparison is what you just drew.
Spotlight the three largest emitters: USA, China, India. They occupy completely different temperature bands. These are also the three countries whose emissions are vital to understand. Same problem, completely different physical context.
Now just France and the UK. They are neighbors, similar economies, similar climate policies. Their temperatures track closely but diverge in some years. If even the most comparable countries aren't identical, country-level analysis isn't optional, it's an important contextualization.
In 2000, nearly every country had a renewable share under 10%. The USA led emissions at over 21 tons per person. Brazil is the striking outlier, already above 40% renewables thanks to hydro, with emissions under 2 tons. It raises the question: does building renewables actually move the emissions needle?
By 2012 Germany and the UK have pushed their renewable shares higher. But China tells a different story: renewables barely moved while emissions roughly doubled as the economy grew. This is a key point: the energy transition and economic development are running simultaneously, and development is faster.
By 2022, a loose negative slope appears: countries with more renewables do tend toward lower emissions. But the relationship isn't a perfect fit, and Brazil still sits as an outlier from 2000. The real question isn't any single year's snapshot, but the direction each country has travelled over the full two decades. That's what comes next.
Unlike temperature, sea level rise accumulates. This NASA satellite record climbed over 7 centimetres between 2000 and 2022, and the pace is accelerating. This is the physical consequence side of the question, regardless of what countries do with their energy mix, this is already happening.
We overlay the average annual natural disaster count across our fifteen countries (EM-DAT). It bounces year to year. Some nations are hit harder, some less, but notice that the cumulative sea level never pauses regardless of whether disasters spike or dip. The physical system doesn't respond to individual events.
Whether a country is winning or losing the energy transition, the ocean keeps rising. The renewables-vs-emissions question we've been tracking is really a question about how fast countries can decarbonise relative to how fast the physical consequences are accumulating. The answer so far: not fast enough.
This is a question that comes naturally from what we've seen so far. We measured each country's 22-year direction of travel using real OWID data: how fast its renewable share changed, and how fast its CO₂-per-person changed. A country in the top-right corner grew renewables and cut emissions, the "win-win." Everything else is a qualified answer.
You've seen the real charts. Now find out whether your mental model matches the data — or just the headlines.
Nine of fifteen countries observed cut per-capita emissions while growing renewables, genuine, measurable progress. Even so, sea level rose over 7cm and continues accelerating. The temperature anomaly continues to rise without any sign of stopping. On a global scale, even with good efforts, there must be more done in order to decarbonize.
The charts above told one story, but the data supports many. Does higher temperature correlate with more extreme weather? Do high-emissions countries have the lowest renewable shares? Do the countries cutting emissions fastest also have the highest sea level exposure? Plot any two indicators, rank all fifteen countries, and find out.
Are the countries building renewable energy actually cutting emissions, and what have two decades of climate impacts looked like in the meantime? We tracked five signals (temperature, CO₂ emissions, renewable energy share, sea level rise, and extreme weather events) across fifteen countries from 2000 to 2023 to find out.
Some countries raised their renewable share while also cutting per-capita CO₂. But many countries did not, especially countries home to millions or billions of people. Meanwhile, global mean sea level rose over 7cm and continues accelerating, while global temperature anomaly continues to increase, regardless of any individual country's progress. It is not up to any individual country to "do more," but rather, a global effort is needed in order to address the climate crisis.
Temperature and sea level rise measure what the climate is doing regardless of human action. CO₂ emissions and renewable energy share measure what countries are contributing and how fast they are transitioning. Extreme weather events connect the two, as it is a rough proxy for how climate impacts are showing up on the ground. Together, they let us ask both sides of the question: are countries doing enough, and what is happening while they do it?
Temperature: Berkeley Earth country-level annual means. CO₂ emissions and renewable energy share: Our World in Data (sourced from Global Carbon Project and BP Statistical Review). Extreme weather events: EM-DAT International Disaster Database (natural disasters only). Sea level: NASA-SSH Global Mean Sea Level from Simple Gridded Sea Surface Height (Version 1, annual means). Population: Our World in Data.
D3.js v7 throughout: a temperature anomaly prediction game, a three-panel sticky scrollytelling sequence, a per-country trend quadrant, a commit-then-reveal quiz, and a two-panel exploration sandbox.