Our latest work
Less meat is nearly always better than sustainable meat, to reduce your carbon footprint
Despite large differences in farming practices across the world, plant-based protein sources still have a lower footprint than the lowest-impact meat products.Is the world making progress against cancer?
Adjusted for both population growth and aging, mortality from cancer is falling globally.Very little of global food is transported by air; this greatly reduces the climate benefits of eating local
Transporting food by plane can come with a large carbon footprint. But very little of our food travels this way – just 0.16% of food miles are from air travel.You want to reduce the carbon footprint of your food? Focus on what you eat, not whether your food is local
‘Eat local’ is a common recommendation to reduce the carbon footprint of your diet. But transport tends to account for a small share of greenhouse gas emissions. How does the impact of what you eat compare to where it’s come from?Is there a loneliness epidemic?
The media claims we are experiencing a ‘loneliness epidemic’. What is the evidence for this?Are people more likely to be lonely in so-called ‘individualistic’ societies?
In countries such as Denmark and Switzerland, it is very common for people to live alone; but contrary to what many believe, this does not translate into higher loneliness. Loneliness and aloneness are not the same.The rise of living alone: how one-person households are becoming increasingly common around the world
One-person households are becoming increasingly common across the world. In this post we explore the data behind this trend.Antiretroviral therapy has saved millions of lives from AIDS and could save more
38 million people had HIV/AIDS in 2020. A couple of decades ago, the chances of surviving more than ten years with HIV were slim. Today, thanks to antiretroviral therapy (ART), people with HIV/AIDS can expect to live long lives. How many lives has ART saved?We’ve just updated our Sustainable Development Goals Tracker
We’ve just updated all available data on the 232 indicators of our UN Sustainable Development Goals Tracker (SDG-Tracker).The importance of personal relations for economic outcomes
Social connections matter for economic outcomes. Personal relations, even those that we maintain for non-economic reasons, often give us access to information and provide us with social collateral for economic transactions.Pneumonia — no child should die from a disease we can prevent
Half of the world’s habitable land is used for agriculture
Half of the world’s habitable land is used for agriculture. More than three-quarters of this is used for livestock production, despite meat and dairy making up a much smaller share of the world’s protein and calorie supply.Food production is responsible for one-quarter of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions
One-quarter of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions result from food and agriculture. What are the main contributors to food’s emissions?What are the environmental impacts of food and agriculture?
Feeding the world whilst reducing food’s impact on the environment is one of our greatest challenges in the coming decades. What are food’s environmental impacts?We won the Lovie Award!
How do CO2 emissions compare when we adjust for trade?
CO2 emissions are typically measured in terms of ‘production’. But how do emissions compare when we adjust for trade? Which countries export the most CO2 and which offshore their emissions?Where in the world do people emit the most CO2?
There are large inequalities in the carbon footprint of people across the world. How do countries across the world compare? Where in the world do people emit the most CO2?Who emits the most CO2 today?
Which countries emit the most CO2 today? How do annual emissions vary across the world?Who has contributed most to global CO2 emissions?
There’s not only significant variability in how much CO2 countries emit across the world today. There are also large differences in how much each has emitted in the past. Who has contributed most to global CO2 since 1750?12 key metrics to understand the state of the world
At Our World in Data we present data and research – across more than 3000 charts – on the world’s largest problems. But some metrics are core to our work: here we present 12 that are key to understanding the state of the world.