We'll start with the transit sector (represented with the dark blue background).

America emits among the highest CO2 per capita in the world at 15.52 tons / year.

Other countries have implemented reforms that result in them having vastly lower carbon emissions.

For example, in Norway they have per capita CO2 emissions of about 8.28 tons / year. That's almost half of our per capita emissions.

Norway has vastly lower emissions for a variety of reasons, but one of the biggest reasons they have low CO2 emissions is due to their governmental policy.

In America, we emit 1.8 billion metric tons of CO2 per year from transit alone.

That's equivalent to about 5.35 tons of CO2e per person (for just the transit sector).

Norway, however, emits 17.4 million metric tons of CO2 per year from transit.

Per capita, Norway uses just 2.17 tons of CO2e for transit. That's 41% of the US's per capita emissions for transit.

Norway is able to achieve such low carbon emissions from transit by providing incentives to increase adoption of more efficient vehicles.

Norway taxes vehicle purchases based on a combination of vehicle weight, engine power and carbon emissions. Cars with higher carbon emissions have a progressively higher tax, but those with lower emissions are subsidized.

Halving carbon emissions from transit isn't impossible - it's been done in other countries. It is possible to achieve this in America, but we need to make this a priority and implement new policies such as increased public transit investment and more clean energy if we want to get there.

Oh look, we're coming up on the end of the transit sector emissions now. However, overall we're a little less than 30% done.

Sweden is a great example of successfully reducing emissions in this sector.

More than 55% of Sweden's energy comes from renewable sources and about 30% from nuclear. This results in total emissions from the Swedish energy sector being at around 2 million metric tons of CO2.

Sweden has per capita emissions for the electricity and heat sector of about .80 tons of CO2e.

In America, where our top sources of electricity are non-renewable (natural gas and coal), our carbon emissions from electricity and heat are 1.965 billion metric tons of CO2.

America's per capita emissions from the electricity and heat sector are 5.99 tons of CO2e. That's a 7.5x the per-capita emissions of Sweden for the same sector.

How does Sweden accomplish such low energy emissions? They've been able to achieve this because of government investment in renewable sources and policies requiring energy retailers to purchase a certain percentage of energy from sustainable sources.

The US is on the right track here. From 2007 to 2017, energy usage of buildings decreased by about 15%.

Switching appliances from gas to electric (including things like heat pumps) would lead to decreased emissions in this sector. For example, a study in San Francisco showed that widespread adoption of electric heat pumps is the largest way to reduce emissions in this sector.

And the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act is making progress on this with incentives for homeowners and businesses to use more efficient appliances.

Another way to reduce emissions in this sector is to increase usage of LED and more efficient lighting. We're making progress on this front, going from less than 5% of households using LEDs to almost 50% in 5 years.

This includes sectors like aviation, agriculture and waste. They don't each have their own section because while these sectors are very important, for this visualization I chose to focus on the 3 largest sectors for emissions in the US.

While America is making progress towards lower emissions, we still have a lot of work to do to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.

The Inflation Reduction Act has many important climate provisions, but it is not enough.

In addition to just reducing emissions, we need to acknowledge the realities of environmental racism and work towards climate justice.

Pollution, flooding and other negative impacts of climate change disproportionately impact those who contribute least to climate change. This is a problem domestically and internationally, and solving climate change is more than just getting to net-zero emissions.

This whole visualization may leave you wondering what you can do. The biggest thing you can do is vote for representatives who believe in climate change. Governmental policies got us to where we are now and are the only way to solve our climate crisis.