🌍 CO2 Emissions Analysis: Industrialized vs Emerging Countries (1990-2020)

A comprehensive analysis of CO2 emissions comparing the top 5 industrialized nations (USA, Canada, Japan, Germany, UK) against the top 5 emerging economies (China, India, Mexico, South Korea, Brazil), focusing on emission patterns, fuel types, and per capita production from 1990 to 2020.

🔍 Research Questions

• How do total carbon footprints compare between industrialized and emerging nations over time?
• What are the dominant fuel types driving emissions in each country group?
• How have per capita CO2 emissions evolved differently between these economic categories?

📊 Dataset

Data sourced from Our World in Data's CO2 containing:

• 📅 Coverage: Annual CO2 emissions data from 1990-2020
• 📋 Variables: Total emissions, emissions by fuel type (coal, oil, gas, cement, flaring), per capita emissions, additional greenhouse gases
• 🌎 Countries: 10 countries total (5 industrialized + 5 emerging economies)
• ✅ Data Quality: Complete coverage for most variables; some greenhouse gas measurements may have missing values

⚙️ Installation & Setup

1. 📁 Clone this repository:

   git clone https://github.com/RossCabrera/CO2EmissionAnalysis.git
   cd CO2EmissionAnalysis

2. 🐍 Set up a virtual environment (recommended):

   python -m venv venv

3. 🔛 Activate the virtual environment:

   • On macOS/Linux:

     source venv/bin/activate

   • On Windows:

     venv\Scripts\activate

4. 📦 Install dependencies:

   pip install -r requirements.txt

5. 🚀 Run the analysis

    jupyter notebook main.ipynb

📁 Project Structure

Data/
├── Raw/
│   └── owid-co2-data.csv
└── Processed/
    ├── filtered_data_1990_onward.csv
    ├── interested_data.csv
    ├── industrialized_data.csv
    └── emerging_data.csv
main.ipynb                    # Main analysis notebook
README.md
requirements.txt              # Python dependencies

🎯 Key Findings

🔥 Total Emissions Trajectory

• Emerging economies, led by China, dramatically increased total emissions after 2000
• Industrialized nations showed relatively stable or declining total emissions post-2005

👥 Per Capita Story

• Industrialized nations maintain 2-3x higher per capita emissions despite lower total emissions
• Gap between groups has narrowed but remains significant

⚡ Energy Mix Patterns

• 🏭 Emerging economies: Coal dominates (60-70% of emissions in China and India)
• 🏢 Industrialized nations: More diversified energy portfolio with declining coal dependency

📓 Notebook Structure

1. 🧹 Data Reading and Cleaning

   • Data import and initial processing
   • Creation of specialized dataframes for analysis
   • Data Analysis

2. 🧮 Carbon footprint calculations

   • Per capita emissions analysis
   • Fuel source breakdown
   • Descriptive statistics
   • Visualizations

3. 📈 Time series analysis

   • Comparative bar charts
   • Stacked area plots for emission sources

🔬 Methodology

• 🎯 Country Selection: Based on GDP and industrialization status as of 1990
• ⏰ Time Frame: 1990-2020 to capture post-Cold War industrial development
• 📏 Metrics: Absolute emissions (MtCO2) and per capita emissions (tCO2/person)
• ⛽ Fuel Categories: Coal, oil, gas, cement production, gas flaring

👥 Contributors

Dwight Sutherland	Rosario Cabrera	Ram Singh