Emissions data, mmm nice...

_{The DECC/Met Office visualisation of global temperature change}

New data was released today showing the carbon emissions from consumption of energy for every country in the world, as well as the worldwide effects of a global temperature change.

The figures from the US Energy Information Administration show emissions up until 2007 and place China ahead of the US for the first time. The same agency made this claim last year, saying that China nudged ahead of the US in 2006, but explained that early figures are based on preliminary data that has since been revised, so I guess we can also expect future corrections to today's data.

The UK ranks eighth highest in the world for carbon emissions from energy consumption and are 3.8% down on 1990 levels, the benchmark for which cuts are measured against, as established at Kyoto.

The country with the largest reductions since 1990 is Bulgaria, with 33.8%. It would be interesting to see how this is accounted for, I'm guessing the collapse of the Eastern Bloc may have had some role to play in that. Interestingly, the countries with the greatest increase since 1990 all seem to be clustered in South and Central America.

These figures are all available via the Guardian's data blog, so hopefully somebody will do something fancy with it all and make it easier to digest whilst no doubt a lot more analysis will come out over the next few weeks.

Also, on the data visualisation tip, I came across this DECC/Met Office site today (see pic above) showing the impact of a global temperature rise of 4 degrees celsius, including info on crop, forest fire, marine, drought and permafrost impacts (among others).

The great thing about such graphics are they make complex information a lot more accessible and understandable, still, I need to sit down and pore over them without the distractions of a certain little fascist before I can make any worthwhile comment.

By the way, if anybody could tell me the legal position of taking a screen shot of the government data map and republishing it it'd be much appreciated. I'm probably in the wrong, if so I'll remove it.