Country portraits

Bhutan leads the way for renewable energy usage

In the coming years, it is going to be unavoidable to adopt renewable energy sources over non-renewable ones for sustainable development. Several countries have taken initiatives in this direction in their own capacity. Clearly, there is a lot to learn from these countries that have succeeded in weaving-in renewable energy usage in public life. However, looking at the energy usage patterns in absolute terms may not be appropriate considering how other potential predictors such as GDP, population, and geographical area influence these decisions. For instance, is a country investing in renewable energy in proportion to its population? Do smaller populations and geographical sizes make it easier to adopt renewable resources? Are there nations consuming more non-renewable resources than their population needs? Are Bhutan and India comparable? Therefore, this visualization is an attempt to simplify this information for general consumption and exploration.

I have used an abstract form of “country portraits”, where design elements of the portrait represent variables of interests (defined in the legend) with varying sizes across countries. I have used a representative sample of countries that include large and small nations, populous and sparse territories, as well as technologically and environmentally progressive nations. The abstract portraits are intended to reduce the overwhelming nature of traditional graphs and engage the reader in exploring differences among variables across countries. View the high-resolution version here.