Interactive Exploration

The unequal planet.

Climate change is not a uniform phenomenon. It is a story of who emitted, who suffers, and who is left to adapt. Scroll to explore the data on a living Earth.

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The Living Earth

Every coordinate has a cost

The richest 1% of the global population have caused twice as much carbon emissions as the poorest 50% over the 25 years from 1990 to 2015. Meanwhile, developing countries suffer 99% of the casualties attributable to climate change.

Drag to rotate · Click empty space to pause · Click a glowing marker to explore a region · Scroll to continue

A Guided Tour of the Data

History 01 / 04

By the Numbers

The arithmetic of injustice

Six waves of evidence, from background to foreground. Hover — or tap — a wave to read what it measures.

Live Estimate · The Planet, Right Now

While you scroll

Live counters estimated from annual global rates. Every second you spend on this page, they keep moving — whether we watch or not.

—Tonnes of CO₂ emitted this year

—Tonnes of ice lost this year

—People displaced by weather this year

—Tonnes of 1.5°C carbon budget remaining

Rates: Global Carbon Project (fossil CO₂ ≈ 37.4 Gt/yr) · IMBIE (ice loss ≈ 420 Gt/yr) · IDMC (weather-related displacement ≈ 32M/yr) · IPCC AR6 (1.5°C budget ≈ 250 Gt from 2025). Indicative estimates for educational use.

Reading the Numbers

Three divides behind every figure

Historical responsibility

Cumulative emissions decide who warmed the planet. The Global North industrialized two centuries early — the carbon released in that head start still sits in the atmosphere today, and it still shapes every negotiation about who should cut first.

II.

The vulnerability gap

The smallest footprints face the largest impacts. Geography, fragile infrastructure, and dependence on climate-sensitive agriculture turn the same 1.5°C of warming into very different lived realities.

III.

The capacity divide

Adaptation is purchasable. Sea walls, insurance, early-warning systems and resilient crops all cost money — which means the ability to survive climate change is itself unequally distributed.

Compare

Two countries, one atmosphere

Select two countries to compare their per-capita emissions, historical responsibility, climate vulnerability, and adaptive capacity. The data reveals what the atmosphere already knows: the burden is not shared equally.

Country A

CO₂ per capita (t, 2023)—

Share of global emissions—

Cumulative since 1970—

Climate vulnerability—

Adaptive capacity—

Country B

CO₂ per capita (t, 2023)—

Share of global emissions—

Cumulative since 1970—

Climate vulnerability—

Adaptive capacity—

—

CO₂ per capita

—

Share of global emissions

—

Select two countries to see the comparison.

Hands-on

Step into the simulation

Numbers tell the gap — now feel it. A small interactive world where climate choices and their unequal consequences play out in your hands.

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Playable on phone & desktop · ~30 MB load · Corner button for fullscreen

The atmosphere does not negotiate. Every tonne of carbon is shared by all of us — the open question is whether the costs will be.

Sources: UNDP · UNEP Emissions Gap Report · Global Carbon Project · Oxfam · World Bank · IPCC AR6. Figures are indicative and for educational use.

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