Starting next week, I will be attending as an observer the UNFCCC Climate Conference in Bonn. So in preparation for such event, I have been doing a bunch of research on the progress of the world's nations towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals, as well as the Paris Agreement goals. I thought it might be useful, to share the three of the platforms that I have found most friendly and useful to visualize and understand what is going on in the world. I think these resources can be of most help for young activists who would like to have scientific data to backup their claims and thus make their campaigns most powerful.
I. OUR WORLD IN DATA
"To work towards a better future, we all need to understand how and why the world has changed up to now. We must carefully measure what we care about, and let the facts and research inform our worldview. We cannot know what is happening in the world from the daily news alone. The news media focuses on single events, too often missing the long-lasting, forceful changes that reshape the world we live in. Our World in Data is a non-profit website that brings together the data and research on the powerful, long-run trends reshaping our world: Through interactive data visualizations we show how the world has changed; by summarizing the scientific literature we explain why."
For instance, said I wanted to learn more about Peacekeeping and disarmament. I write in the search bar on top of the webpage: Peacekeeping. The engine will come up with a list of already compiled data for peacekeeping, including a description of the data, graphs, sources, etc. There is a very long list of data published in this website absolutely worth looking at.
Example:
NOTE: Most of the data I have been able to find s far dates to 2014 latest. So, it is a couple of years in delay, but I think the simple visualizations of data still makes it worth a look.
II. CLIMATE ACTION TRACKER
"The Climate Action Tracker (CAT) is an independent scientific analysis produced by three research organisations tracking climate action since 2009. We track progress towards the globally agreed aim of holding warming well below 2°C, and pursuing efforts to limit warming to 1.5°C.
CAT quantifies and evaluates climate change mitigation commitments, and assesses, whether countries are on track to meeting those. It then aggregates country action to the global level, determining likely temperature increase by the end of the century. CAT also develops sectoral analysis to illustrate required pathways for meeting the global temperature goals."
What I find to be particularly useful about CAT, is that it gives updated data (last updated in April 2019) with very easy to understand visualizations. It offers a world map with color-coded legend that gives you a large-scale idea of the world's progress towards achieving the golas of the Paris Agreement, or in other words a global warming limited to a 1.5°C.
Interestingly enough, the only country out those where I have lived that is in the better half of the Climate Action spectrum, is India. The United States, where I currently live is in Critically Insufficient (particularly problematic because they are the second largest carbon emitter of the world); Chile, the country were I was born and raised, is in Highly Insufficient, interestingly enough because it is going to be the host-country for the COP25; Singapore, is also in Highly Insufficient, and the EU is in Insufficient (and Germany, the country where I am writing this from and where the Climate Conference is being held next week, is the 6th largest carbon emitter). And so on, and so forth. What does this mean? Well, all the information is on the website, and you can input whatever it is you are looking for and find nice graphics for it. As to the legend for these categories shown above, can also be found right next to it
To learn more about it peek in the website, take a look at how your home country is doing, and what can it do better, or whatever else you consider to be interesting!
III. SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS TRACKER
https://sdg-tracker.org/
While I recognize there are many more free research tools worth mentioning. The last one I would like to touch upon on this post is the Sustainable Development Goals Tracker. If you don't know what the UN Sustainable Development Goals are, I recommend you check this website out.
The SDG tracker essentially maps out each one of the Sustainable Development Goals, and using Our World in Data's engine it gives you a description and a chart as to what progress towards those goals look like. Again, as with Our World in Data, the data is a little dated and it still has many aspects under construction. Nonetheless, it provides with a useful, easy-to-read visualizations of the data.
I hope these resources can be of some use. They definitely have been for me! Let me know if you have any questions, comments, feedback or more resources you would be interested in sharing with me. Anything counts!
Best!
F.