Template talk:Infobox country

Greenhouse gas emissions

I am proposing to add greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to the country infobox.

GHGs include any gases which contribute to climate change. Different gases affect our climate in different ways, the most impactful GHGs being carbon dioxide and methane. Although different gases contribute differently, conversion factors known as global warming potential can be used to sum their contributions, and express the total in carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e). This allows for an objective measure of countries' contributions to climate change.

Our World in Data provides a complete list of national emissions in CO2e here

I believe readers would value this information in the infobox, given the increasing impact of climate, international agreements (most importantly the Paris Agreement), and the geopolitical significance of GHG emissions.

I am interested to know what you think. 20WattSphere (talk) 01:12, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

It's an important statistic, but with regard to inclusion in the infobox, is it more significant than any of zillions of other statistics, such as live births per thousand, life expectancy at birth, literacy rates, homicide rates, density of airborne particulates, percentage completing various levels of education, cars per million people, poverty rates, percentage of population incarcerated, opiate death rates, arable land, access to fresh water, etc.? I suppose all of these can be included, but infoboxes probably shouldn't extend indefinitely. Largoplazo (talk) 08:53, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

Statistics can be interpreted in many ways and in my opinion the more complex they are the more ways there are to create confusion. How many people actually understand what greenhouse emissions are, how the statistics are created and what they mean? Using them would, I think, result in their misuse to make political points. That is less of a problem with vert simple statistics such as population per sq km. Also, agree with Largoplazo, what makes greenhouse emissions so special? Roger 8 Roger (talk) 09:09, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

Largoplazo and Roger 8 Roger - thanks for your replies! I'll respond to all the above points here:

• On importance: I agree that not everything can be included in an infobox. To be overly inclusive here would defeat the purpose. To provide a quick, simple summary of facts, there needs to be some threshold of importance to be considered for inclusion. My view (which is shared by many around the world) is that climate change is one of the most important problems the planet is facing. There are countless examples of how climate change is impacting people's lives now, and how it will impact them into the future. To provide one example, to illustrate the scale of this issue - Indonesia's capital city Jakarta needs to be moved because of climate change. So I don't believe climate change can be left off the list of important statistics. I would even suggest some facts in the current infobox are perhaps not as important as this one... but I won't give an example since I don't want to pick on any of them!
• On complexity: I believe the metric is quite easy to understand. It's a simple measure - it's merely the total amount of emissions produced within a particular country each year. It's a much simpler concept than GDP, for example, which is included in the infobox (let alone Gini coefficient, which even economists struggle to understand). So I don't believe this is too complex a statistic to be useful to readers, and should not be ruled out of the infobox.
• On politicization: my feeling is that anything and everything can be used to feed into political arguments. Climate change is no different. However, the purpose of Wikipedia is to inform and educate people, and this process is a necessary and beneficial part of the political process. I feel we should not be afraid of our work being used in political debate - rather, I would be afraid of our work not being used in political debate.

Let me know what you think.

20WattSphere (talk) 11:24, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

Though I mentioned poverty indexes and suggested that they'd be extraneous, I do see that the GINI and HDI parameters are present. Even so, I can make the case that like every other parameter in the infobox, they tell us something basic about the condition and nature of the country: What are its capital, currency, form of government? Is it large or small? Who populates it? What religions do they practice? Are they (this is where GDP, GINI, and HDI come in) economically developed, and are the people rich or poor? None of these gives me a sense that they were included for the purpose of raising anybody's consciousness about some issue. None of them amounts to "Look at what this country is doing to the planet". In contrast, greenhouse gas emission isn't really a basic national characteristic, and your stated reason for your proposal was consciousness-raising regarding an agenda (albeit one on which I'm in agreement). Largoplazo (talk) 14:19, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

This is something that generally not covered in these topics. Moxy🍁 15:21, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

I think GHG emissions is quite a basic question about countries (similar to HDI and Gini). To be clear - I am not proposing this out of advocacy. I am proposing this because I think it's an important fact about countries (and companies actually, but that's another story).

Every time I read about a country, I wish their annual emissions were in the infobox. Some examples of the value it would provide include:

• GHG emissions relates to the question of "are they rich or poor", since many highly-developed countries consume a lot of fossil fuels. Does the country import or produce fuels, or do they struggle to obtain energy?
• It also provides a measure of what countries' economies are like. Are they a manufacturing country, do they make steel or other commodities, or does their economy mainly provide services? Do they drive cars, or ride bikes and trains.
• It indicates whether they are likely to struggle to meet the Paris Agreement or other international obligations.

20WattSphere (talk) 20:08, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

Looking at List of countries by greenhouse gas emissions, I don't think these points make a lot of sense. The raw numbers correlate primarily with population, and the per-capita numbers are a mixed bag - they don't correlate well to either level of development or level of manufacturing. As for the third point, understanding that requires a level of context that would not be available simply by presenting a number. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:44, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

Good point about population size - I think per-capita emissions would be a much better choice. That's also quite readily available.

Per capita emissions seems to vaguely correlate with HDI - but there's a lot of variation, which is a large part of why I'm interested in including it. If it was perfectly correlated with HDI, for example, then it wouldn't be worth including, since HDI would be readily convertible to emissions intensity. So I think it's a different enough metric, and an important enough metric, to include. 20WattSphere (talk) 07:58, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

I strongly support adding emissions per capita and global rank (lowest to highest) in brackets. Potentially this stat is of greater educational value (or of more interest) than many stats already included. The consensus of the scientific community is that unabated GHG emissions and subsequent Climate Change will very likely result in unrivalled environmental, economic and geopolitical upheaval ("Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability". Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change).

The other somewhat unique aspect of this stat (if provided with a rank) is that it provides a measure of a country’s “outward” performance. Eg, what is this country doing for the global community, rather than what it is going for its own community (GDP per Capita, Gini, HDI). The Good Country Index does this more holistically and robustly but emissions per capita is a start.

In response to others comments.

I don’t think it’s complicated, particularly if rank is added. Read the article on Gini (already included) if you want complexity.

Regarding the statement that data should not be added as a means to advocate change, I agree with the statement but dies it really applies here? Emissions per capita data has very high educational value. How that is used to advocate is unpredictable, there’s no guarantee it will be a useful tool for advocating for emissions reductions (it may actually be used by diplomats of comparably low emitting countries to argue against emissions reductions!). It’s just interesting data, and in of itself doesn’t advocate for anything.

Regarding the risk of cluttering the country info box, this is valid. Priority must be given on merit, to matters of most importance. Being such a threat to the environment, economy and geopolitics, climate change information and data regarding emissions should potentially take priority over some existing stats. Certainly I think its addition is justified, if the infobox becomes unruly lowest priority should be cut. RichoWildman (talk) 14:56, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

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I am strongly in favour of including CO₂ emmissions since Climate Change is probably the most critical risk issue facing not only mankind, but also the entire planetary ecosystem. We are already at the threshold of +1.5°C warming - beyond which the planet is at risk of crossing one, or more, "tipping points" which risk pushing the climatic system into uncharted territory, with the potential to lead to profound global climatic sytem shifts. For example:

1. There is growing concern that the Gulf Stream may collapse within a couple a decades, well before the end of this century. If this happens, that could, paradoxically, (notwithstanding an increasing average global temperature) lead to a dramatic plunge in temperature in Western Europe.
2. In the Arctic there is a progressive depletion of sea ice to such an extent that the long-sought Northwest Passage is becoming a viable route for commercial shipping. As the white ice is replaced by the dark sea, Earth's albedo (reflectiveness) is increasing - not only in the north polar waters, but also on the landmass of Greenland - generating a positive feedback loop - accelerating the rate of Climate Change.
3. Antarctica, previously thought to be largely immune to the ravages of climate change, is now found by researchers to also be under great risk of contributing significantly to global sea level rise. Unlike sea ice at the north pole - which has little impact on global sea level - land-based glaciers at the south pole have the potential to dramatically impact global sea-level rise. The Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) is accelerating - increasing in speed by 40% over the past 40 years - generating large-scale eddies that draw-in relatively warm waters from the higher latitudes - leading to increasing melting at the perimiter of Antarctica. The ice shelves that surround Antarctica act as a "girdle" that block the land-based glaciers from sliding into the Southern Ocean. Current research also shows that salty sea water is increasingly penetrating under these retaing ice shelves - leading to a rapid increase in the melting under the ice shelves which - when coupled with increased melting of surface ice due to climate change - means that the ice shelves that surround Antarctica are being melted both from above and from below. The Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) is accelerating - increasing in speed by 40% over the past 40 years - generating large-scale eddies that draw-in relatively warm waters from the higher latitudes - leading to increasing melting at the perimiter of Antarctica. The ice shelves that surround Antarctica act as a "girdle" that block the land-based glaciers from sliding into the Southern Ocean. Current research also shows that salty sea water is increasingly penetrating under these retaing ice shelves - leading to a rapid increase in the melting under the ice shelves which - when coupled with increased melting of surface ice due to climate change - means that the ice shelves that surround Antarctica are being melted both from above and from below. Already, just one land-based glacier (Thwaites), roughly the size of Florida, responsible for 4% of sea level rise in the recent past, holds the potential to raise sea-lvel by 0.6 m (2 feet). To put this in perspective, if all of Antarctica were to melt (no one is predicting this in this century) that could potentially translate into a sea-level increase of something well-over 60 m (200 ft) - but, if that happened, the increase would be far more since other glaciers around the world including, most notably, Greenland would mean that sea level rise would be far greater. I have seen estimates that suggest that if all the ice on Earth melted, sea level would rise by over 90 metres (300 ft). Of course, if that happened, the oceans would expand in surface area and all of the world's coastal cities - as well as many inland cities - would dissapear beneath the waves.

References
In short, climate change presents an existential risk to life on Earth, with the potential to render economics as we know it largely irrelevant. As such, it would be irresponsible not to include CO₂ emmissions in Template:Infobox_country. To omit climate change indicators only plays into the narrative of denialists.

Besides, we can't control what we don't measure. While there is, to some degree If Wikipedia took a lead in condensing the disparate sources of data into, maybe the following:

• Gross national CO₂ emissions
• Per Capita CO₂ emissions
  • CO₂
  • Methane
  • etc.

This would really help to ensure that these key indicators are being measured and tracked.

There are, actually a number of sources for reliable data, including:

• Our World in Data's CO₂ emissions
• The IEA's annual CO₂ Emissions: CO₂ Emissions in 2023
• United Nations Environment Programme's annual Emissions Gap Reports: Emissions Gap Report 2023
• The IMF's Climate Change Indicators Dashboard.
  

Enquire (talk) 22:08, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for this comment, and appreciate the list of sources. Also keen for a breakdown by gas, and per capita. I agree, this is an extremely significant and measurable part of civilisation, and is fundamental to understanding countries. 20WattSphere (talk) 08:12, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

We cannot control what we do not measure... How to escallate this?

Enquire (talk) 21:38, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

The purpose of infoboxes isn't to highlight issues critical to mankind. They aren't a WP:SOAPBOX, and all the reasons I'm seeing here for including this information there screams "SOAPBOX". Largoplazo (talk) 22:07, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

You could make an identical argument for excluding any other indicator. Take GDP for example - is Wikipedia advocating for countries to emphasize their consideration of GDP? You could make that argument, but I would argue GDP is just an important number to understand what's going on at a macro level in a country. Just like GHG emissions. 20WattSphere (talk) 01:34, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

Just to add - virtually every large company now reports publicly on their GHG emissions. Are they advocating for policy change? No, they are responding to investors' demand for information on an objectively important metric. 20WattSphere (talk) 01:37, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

The investors are demanding policy change. Largoplazo (talk) 03:22, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

You're telling me shareholders of fossil fuel companies want policy changes that would financially harm themselves? I don't see any evidence of that. Yet, fossil fuel companies all report their emissions, because it's a useful metric for investors to understand their operations. 20WattSphere (talk) 04:20, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

You're telling me that they want those figures for funsies? Largoplazo (talk) 09:50, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

Of course not. They want those figures so they can better assess risk (including policy risk). This is so they can do their job better, by more accurately valuing company stocks. 20WattSphere (talk) 10:37, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

So investing in a company with a low greenhouse gas output carries less risk? In other words, lower outpupt would be financially beneficial to investors—not harmful? Largoplazo (talk) 12:51, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

Yes, a company with lower GHG output carries less risk (all else being equal). Whether this is beneficial for you depends on whether you're trying to buy or sell the stock. GHG output reporting allows transparency and better financial decisionmaking (and prevents investors having to put resources into estimating it). Some reading: [1] [2]

20WattSphere (talk) 22:17, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

I'm looking at all the reasons being given here for why a greenhouse gas indicator should be included and they're all advocacy-related. Largoplazo (talk) 03:21, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

Providing information is not the same thing as advocacy. If it was, most of Wikipedia should be deleted. 20WattSphere (talk) 04:21, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

Every argument being given here is couched in advocacy, so please stop turning around and responding to me, when I note this, that it's all just in the spirit of neutrally providing information, just because. Largoplazo (talk) 09:54, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

Obviously many people here want climate change to be solved, so you could argue these arguments are couched in advocacy. But in my view (and I would argue that WP:SOAPBOX supports this) that doesn't mean WP should choose not to convey information when there is demand for it - even if the demand is due to a political* viewpoint. Nobody's asking for infoboxes to take a position on climate change, just to say where emissions are coming from.

*Saying that climate mitigation is political is also kind of a stretch - we have international agreements on this. Unless you live outside the United Nations, your government agrees that climate change should be mitigated too. 20WattSphere (talk) 21:39, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

References

CO2 emissions per capita

I made a proposal to include greenhouse gas emissions in the infobox (see thread above). Users were not convinced, and I'm happy to accept that.

Instead, I'd like to suggest CO2 emissions per capita. I think this is preferable because it is adjusted for population size, making it more relevant to understanding a country's economy. Using CO2 only is also more clear and understandable than GHGs.

By way of explanation, I think it would be valued by:

• Students of energy, since emissions are mainly produced through energy consumption (link)
• Students of politics and international relations, since climate change is an increasingly important issue in international relations
• Students of development, since more developed countries have higher emissions per capita (link)
• Students of economics, since emissions are correlated with GDP (link)

If Wikipedians like the idea but disagree with the particular metric, I think the above readers would also be very interested in carbon intensity, which is total kilograms of CO2 emissions per dollar of GDP (link)

Keen to hear your thoughts. 20WattSphere (talk) 08:33, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Earier, I disagreed with the idea altogether. The reasons I stated weren't particular to the metric you'd chosen. Largoplazo (talk) 09:45, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Would you care to elaborate? I did respond to a number of your points above. 20WattSphere (talk) 10:31, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

And you didn't change my mind about any of them, so my points remain as already stated. Largoplazo (talk) 12:23, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

For other editors' benefit, these were that:

• It is not a basic fact about the condition and nature of the country (my reply: it is a similar fact to GDP etc. in that it's a metric which provides an overall measure of a country's energy use, industry and economy)
• Infobox fields are not for consciousness-raising regarding social issues (my reply: I'm suggesting this because I think many readers would be interested, not to advocate for any political idea)

20WattSphere (talk) 08:42, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

I supports your suggestion and think it is a good idea. ArmorredKnight (talk) 10:19, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

We cannot control what we do not measure... How to escallate this?

Enquire (talk) 21:41, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

Date standard

AFAICR, there used to be national preferred a date format included in Template_talk:Infobox_country in the past (i.e. dd/mm/yyyy or mm/dd/yyyy or yyyy-mm-dd. In any event, I feel that this would be a valuable addition to the infobox.
Enquire (talk) 22:21, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Unsure as to what value that adds. It's not something we're likely to discuss in the article so it doesn't belong in the infobox unless it meets some kind of specific exception. Plus some countries, such as Canada, don't have a single preferred one and happily intermix multiple formats. And ultimately I don't see how it helps a reader understand the country. Canterbury Tail talk 01:10, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Sovereignty

Can the parameters for |sovereignty_type= and |sovereignty_note= be expanded so that multiple ones can be added to a certain country's infobox?

For example, I should be able to add the different periods when a country was a vassal of various different empires at various points in its history. That would require the addition of a |sovereignty_date= parameter for these too. Antiquistik (talk) 09:29, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

It's meant to be for the current status, with the established dates able to handle the date or dates that sovereignty changed leading to the current status. This assumes of course that it is a political entity passing between different sovereigns or similar, the infobox format doesn't map well onto more abstract notions. CMD (talk) 13:05, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

Sovereignty as we know it today is a reasonably modern concept (began approximately in the 17th century). I think to use the term for periods before then would be anachronistic. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 00:15, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

In this case, could new parameters be created which would indicate whether an ancient or mediaeval state was a vassal or dependency of another state and the periods during which their vassaldom or dependency lasted? Antiquistik (talk) 08:16, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 18 July 2024

I'd like to please request for the {{subst:tfm|type=infobox}} tag to be added so I can nominate this template for merging with {{Infobox settlement}}. PK2 (talk; contributions) 07:36, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

 Not done for now: PK2, please file the nomination first, then I will add it. Primefac (talk) 16:00, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

I've just filed the nomination now. I've also included {{Infobox political division}} in this request as well. PK2 (talk; contributions) 09:36, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

 Done Primefac (talk) 12:06, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Gini colors and accessibility

I have two concerns with how this template uses color in the Gini section. I've added a new set of testcases so y'all can try out my changes in the sandbox or experiment with alternatives. Once there's consensus for how to address these MOS:COLOR accessibility issues, I'll make a formal edit request.

Over-reliance on color (red vs green)

High Kingdom
Gini	90.0 very high

Lowivia
Gini	15.0 low

Using the distinction between red and green as the sole hint that "high is bad" is... not great. Even readers with full color vision are going to miss this sometimes. Few will click through to Gini coefficient, then resume reading the infobox understanding that Gini measures inequality and high means unequal.

The solution I'm trying is to use more descriptive category names, e.g. "high" becomes "high inequality". The category name is already on its own line, so there is enough space.

Gini may be an imperfect measure of inequality, but as long as we're including it and expressing its valence in colors, we might as well explain what it's trying to measure.

Low contrast (orange)

Mediumland
Gini	35.0 medium

Orange on white-ish is hard to read due to low contrast.

So, what color could be used to indicate a neutral sentiment?

• Darker orange – reads as brown to me, losing the "okayish" connotation that yellow/orange have when near green and red
• Azure – fits with the change-indicator color scheme ( ), but looks more like a link than a sentiment
• Gray (AA) – fits with the other change-indicator color scheme ( ), used for the population row
• Darker gray (AAA) – not distinct enough from black to indicate anything
• No color – normal text, close to black

I'm trying the gray, even though we usually aim for AAA-level contrast in templates. Jruderman (talk) 12:38, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Adding a Democracy Index

Bringing this up once again as it seems this topic keeps occurring on many talk pages for countries such as China and Russia where people keep discussing whether or not to put "under an authoritarian dictatorship" or similar language under the Government section in the infobox. My understanding is that this section should be reserved for the form of government, rather than the character of the government. Thus, the Government section should simply list what the country officially is, while a separate section below it should list what the country actually is. Two indices for consideration would be the V-Dem Democracy Index and The Economist Democracy Index owing to their wide use among scholars and academic research journals. BootsED (talk) 01:04, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

I don't think adding indices (no matter which ones) would stop people from discussing that. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:13, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

The problem with international rankings is that there are so many to choose from.

Including Gini isn't too controversial because it has a simple definition and few degrees of freedom. Including the Human Development Index isn't too controversial because it's published by the United Nations and consists of simple measures of things (health, education, income) seen as good across ideologies.

Measuring "democracy" or "freedom" or "equality" requires a lot more judgment calls. I think that makes it less appropriate for inclusion in country infoboxes. Jruderman (talk) 07:32, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

That's a very good point and quite true. My counter-argument is that such judgement calls are already being made on numerous country pages, and that if such calls are to be made they should ideally be made based on highly-cited academic measures of "democracy" that follow Wikipedia policy on reliable and academic sources rather than news articles. I agree, adding indices would not stop people from discussing this topic, but it would help provide context for the discussion. BootsED (talk) 01:49, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Everything you say is true. It's just... outsourcing our judgment calls exclusively to the Economist Intelligence Unit, across all country pages at once, doesn't seem like the Wikipedia thing to do. Jruderman (talk) 02:21, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Would the conclusions of editors be different than the conclusions of the EIU or V-Dem indices? And if not, why not use these highly-cited and reputable sources by academia instead of lower-quality sources and news reports? Wikipedia itself is based on reliable sources, not the opinions of editors. So the use of the EIU or other indices would still follow Wikipedia’s policies on RS. BootsED (talk) 14:37, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Using indices in article prose is one thing. Using them in the infobox is a statement that they are a key fact to understand a country. This is also without considering potential neutrality concerns in promoting particular viewpoints about what makes a good government, which is what both V-DEM and the EIU seek to do. CMD (talk) 15:43, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

That’s fair. However, I would argue that how democratic versus authoritarian a country is remains a key fact to understand a country. North Korea is officially a democracy, but not having a statement in the infobox somewhere stating how it is authoritarian would be misleading. There’s nothing to do with neutrality or a value judgement there. This proposal merely formalizes what is already a consensus on many pages such as the former, to include a statement such as “under an authoritarian dictatorship” or thereof in the infobox, not only in the article body. BootsED (talk) 17:27, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

None of this matters if it can't actually be represented as a straightforward numerical figure without further context. Which it cannot. Remsense诉 17:39, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

It can be represented this way. Both the V-Dem and EIU provide numerical listings of countries’ score, and further group those scores under a descriptive title. For instance, the EIU lists scores between 8.00 and 10.00 as “Full democracies” or between 4.00 and 5.99 as “Hybrid regimes.” This can easily be quantified and linked to the Wikipedia page on the topic. A similar system also exists for the V-Dem index. BootsED (talk) 17:51, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Feel free to read my argument about why this would be immensely inappropriate earlier on this page. Remsense诉 17:56, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

I do not get from the infobox of North Korea that it is a liberal democracy in the way "democracy" is often understood by casual English readers. (The body does unhelpfully state "the elections have been described by outside observers as similar to elections in the Soviet Union" without explaining what that means, and does not note the "single list of WPK-approved candidates who stand without opposition" until the end of a very long paragraph.) I would also not feel the absence of a statement on some axis of liberal democracy to totalitarian dictatorship would imply by default one or the other. CMD (talk) 01:26, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Changes to formatting of info in this template

Recently some changes to formatting were added- looking at the INDIA page there are changes such as President and whatever other data having bullet points, as well as Dominion/Republic in the Independence subsection being in their own rows in a table. The Population title is centred, but the GDP sections wouldn't fall under this Population section but it looks like it does too.

I don't know when these were added as I'm pretty sure that formatting changes are added elsewhere, but they look the data look clumpy in my opinion. I think that the format changes should be reverted, but what do you think? — Karnataka 07:55, 6 August 2024 (UTC)