Receive free visual and data press updates
We’ll send you a file myFT Daily Digest Rounding email to the latest Visual and data journalism News every morning.
Only a handful of European countries have succeeded in decarbonising, despite the EU’s commitment to reaching net zero emissions by 2050, according to data from the energy think tank Ember.
Sweden was the first member country to completely eliminate fossil fuels in electricity production, using a combination of nuclear and renewable energy. On the other hand, Poland is the most dependent on fossil fuels, which still account for 75 percent of production.
Germany, Europe’s largest producer of renewable energy, abolished nuclear power completely in April 2023, and still uses large amounts of coal. The government plans to close all coal plants by 2038.
Jonathan Vincent
Our other charts for the week
Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic are the countries most exposed to automation, as it can affect more than a third of the workforce, according to a new OECD report. In contrast, the United Kingdom and Luxembourg are the least at risk, with only 19 percent and 17.7 percent of their workforces at risk.
The jobs that are most threatened are low- and medium-skill jobs, such as construction, agriculture, and transportation, while high-skill occupations such as management and social services professions remain at low risk of being automated, despite advances in artificial intelligence.
The report found that while artificial intelligence has replaced some tasks in high-skilled occupations, many skills still depend on human labour.
Joanna S Kaw
As Joe Biden, 80, and Donald Trump, 77, considered the 2024 presidential run-off, nearly half of Americans considered 50-59 the best age for a commander-in-chief while more than a quarter thought 60 or older was the optimal age, according to the Pew Research Center.
Twenty percent of all respondents chose a chair in their 30s or 40s as ideal, but that number rose to 48 percent among adults under 30.
Of the 46 presidents of the United States, 54 percent were in their fifties at the inauguration, 26 percent were older and 20 percent were younger. The youngest elected president was John F. Kennedy at the age of 43 (Teddy Roosevelt was 42 when he took office in 1901 after McKinley’s death).
Ian Boot
Palm oil and other commodity production accounted for the majority of tree cover losses between 2000 and 2021 in Latin America and the Caribbean and East Asia and the Pacific, according to World Bank data.
All tree canopy loss is bad for climate and biodiversity, but the most permanent damage is caused by permanent factors, such as urbanization and the production of soybeans, beef, and other commodities.
Between 2000 and 2021, 11 percent of global tree cover has been wiped out. The area lost in 2021 alone was comparable in size to the UK.
Amy Porritt
Exactly a year ago today, the UK set a record average daily maximum temperature across the country at 31.5°C, surpassing the previous high of 31.1°C reached the day before, according to the Met Office.
In some places, temperatures rose above 40 degrees Celsius for the first time. Coningsby in Lincolnshire holds the record for the UK’s warmest day on record, reaching 40.3°C on July 19, beating the previous record by 1.6°C.
The UK’s long-term average daily maximum temperature in July and August is only 18.5°C, but summers are getting hotter. June 2023 was the warmest since 1884, with the UK’s average temperature 2.5°C above average.
Graham Parish
Welcome to Datawatch – regular readers of the Financial Times print edition may recognize it from the weekday home page on the front page.
Do you have thoughts on any of the charts that came out this week – or any other data that caught your eye in the past seven days? Let us know in the comments.
Keep up with the latest visual press and data from the Financial Times:
data points. The weekly column is from the Financial Times’ chief data correspondent, John Byrne Murdoch.
This week’s climate graphic is posted each week on the DC Climate Center page.
Sign up for The Climate Graphic: Illustrated newsletter, free for FT subscribers. Posted every Sunday, a behind-the-scenes look at the week’s most topical climate data from our team of climate reporting and data visualization specialists.
Follow FT on Instagram for charts and photos from the stories that matter.
He follows FT data On Twitter for news graphics and data-driven stories from around FT.
