May 10, 2024
The Community Emissions Data System (CEDS) produces invaluable long-term data on the emissions of air pollutants worldwide. It has just published its latest update, extending this data to 2022.
One of the most striking changes in air pollution trends has been the abrupt drop in sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions from shipping. As you can see in the chart — where shipping is highlighted in red — there was a dramatic fall from over 10 million tonnes a year in 2019 to 3 million tonnes a year later.
The change resulted from the International Maritime Organization’s strict limits on marine fuels, introduced in 2020: the maximum percentage of sulfur allowed in these fuels fell from 3.5% to 0.5%. All ships worldwide had to comply.
This drop is positive for tackling local air pollution and acid rain. However, it also has implications for climate change since SO2 has masked some of the warming caused by greenhouse gases.
Today
For many decades, most children in Europe were born to mothers in their twenties. However, since the mid-1970s, there has been a steady increase in the number of women giving birth in their thirties.
As the chart shows, since 2015, women in their thirties have given birth to the greatest number of babies; in the same year, it became more common for a woman in her forties to give birth than for women in their teens.
Many factors are causing these changes, including women spending more years in education and developing their careers, easily accessible contraception, improvements in fertility treatment, and high childcare costs.
Explore what age women are having children in your country →
Yesterday
Antibiotics can play an important role in preventing disease and improving the health of animals. But overusing them, particularly for livestock, poses a risk to human health through antibiotic resistance.
Over the last decade, Europe has made much progress in reducing antibiotic use in farm animals. This has been achieved through stricter regulations and, in some countries, taxes on antibiotics.
The chart shows the change in sales of these antimicrobials for livestock between 2010 and 2022. It shows a range of European countries, with a few examples highlighted in bold.
Antibiotic use has fallen by over half in some countries, such as the UK, Italy, France, and the Netherlands.
These countries have still managed to maintain productive agricultural sectors by focusing on other ways to manage disease risk and animal growth, such as vaccinations, ventilation, cleaner equipment, and high-quality diets.
Read more about the differences in antibiotic use for livestock across the world →
March 21
January 2025 was the hottest January on record. This was surprising because the world recently transitioned from El Niño (which tends to increase global temperatures) to La Niña (which tends to cool them). We might have expected this cooling to be reflected in January’s temperatures. It was not.
But February did not follow this same pattern.
The chart tracks monthly temperature anomalies, comparing current temperatures to historical averages. Each dot represents a February anomaly, with El Niño (warmer) years in orange and red and La Niña (cooler) years in blue.
As expected, February 2025 cooled compared to February 2024, following the usual pattern where La Niña years tend to be cooler than the El Niño years before them.
However, this doesn’t mean global warming has slowed. Recent La Niña years are still warmer than El Niño years from just a few decades ago, showing that even natural climate fluctuations don’t reverse the long-term warming trend.
We update this data monthly so you can track how these patterns evolve.
Read our recent article that explains in more detail how the world is warming despite natural fluctuations from the El Niño cycle →
March 20
In every country in the world, women live longer than men — but the size of this gap in life expectancy varies widely.
The difference is striking in some countries, like Russia and Ukraine, where women’s life expectancy is over 10 years longer. Their gaps have been wide due to higher death rates in young and middle-aged men — often due to alcohol use, smoking, and other risks. The war in Ukraine has widened this gap further, as men face high mortality from conflict.
The gap is much smaller in other countries, including in West Africa and South Asia. There are likely multiple reasons for this, including higher rates of maternal mortality and HIV among women. Just a few decades ago, Bangladesh and India had shorter female than male life expectancies due to higher rates of female infanticide and neglect in childhood, and the gap in lifespans in these countries is still relatively small.
Many factors affect life expectancy, and the sex gap in lifespans has varied widely across countries and over time.
You can read more in my article about why women live longer than men →
March 19
The world's population has more than doubled over the last 60 years, but global food production has managed to keep up.
The chart shows the change in four indicators since 1961: cereal production, cereal yields, land use for cereals, and population. Each metric is expressed in its relative change since 1961 (which is given a value of zero).
Cereal production has increased by 3.5-fold, more than the 2.6-fold growth in population. That means production has grown faster than the population, and the world produces more cereal per person than 60 years ago.
We can also see what has driven this increase. You can grow more food by either increasing crop yields or using more land. While land use has increased, most of this growth has come from higher crop yields. This has spared some natural habitats from being converted into farmland.
Read more in my article on the Green Revolution and food production →
March 18
Putting a number on “happiness” is hard. But one way to better understand how satisfied people are with their lives is to ask them.
Self-reported life satisfaction is one key metric that researchers rely on. Respondents are asked to rate their lives on a 10-step ladder, where 0 represents the worst possible life, and 10 is the best.
The chart shows self-reported life satisfaction measured against gross domestic product (GDP) per capita. The two are positively correlated: people in richer countries tend to be more satisfied with their lives.
Of course, income is not the only thing that matters. You can also see the large spread of values for countries with similar levels of GDP per capita. For example, South American countries tend to have higher happiness levels than those in other regions.
Explore more data on life satisfaction across countries, within countries, and over people’s lifespan →
March 17
When we emit carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere, most of it stays there for centuries or millennia. This means that CO2 emitted even a century ago has contributed to the rising temperatures we see today.
In other words, how much the climate warms depends on how much cumulative CO2 is emitted over time.
The chart shows the ten countries with the largest share of the world’s historical emissions, based on cumulative emissions from fossil fuels and industry since 1750.
The United States has contributed the most, accounting for almost one quarter. This is followed by China and Russia.
There are many other ways to understand contributions to climate change – explore data on annual, per capita, and trade-adjusted emissions →
