This visualization project aims to explore global energy consumption patterns and greenhouse gas emissions across various countries in 2018. Drawing on comprehensive data from Our World in Data, our team crafted an interactive experience that allows users to explore how different nations contribute to global emissions and their energy profiles.
The year 2018 was chosen deliberately to reflect a period just before the unprecedented global changes brought about by the pandemic. Our visualization employs a divergent color scale, transitioning from light yellow to deep orange-brown to signify varying levels of emissions across countries. This intuitive encoding facilitates immediate visual comprehension of each country's emission intensity. To contrast this, we used sky blue to depict oceans, leveraging the high contrast between yellow and blue to enhance map readability, especially beneficial for users with color vision deficiencies. Unreported emission data are represented in light grey to maintain aesthetic consistency.
Interactive elements are central to our design, allowing users to engage deeply with the data. The map offers zoom and pan functionalities for detailed exploration. Countries highlight in dark blue upon mouse hover, signaling interactivity, and click actions reveal detailed pie charts on energy consumption breakdowns and a comparative bar chart of emissions.
Upon selecting a country, a pie chart displays the energy mix, distinguishing between renewable and non-renewable sources through color-coded segments. Interactive tooltips provide detailed information for each energy type, enriching the user's understanding.
A horizontal bar chart complements the pie chart, ranking the selected country's emissions against others. The selected country's bar stands out in red, facilitating a comparative analysis at a glance. This allows users to discern patterns between a country's energy sources and its emissions ranking.
There are also clickable icons at the bottom left and top right corners of the visualization guiding users to learn about how to interact with the map and more information about the data sources.