Up in Smoke: The Cost of Fossil Fuel Subsidies

Up in Smoke: The Cost of Fossil Fuel Subsidies

My project aimed to create a thought-proving data visualisation to answer the questions: How much does each Australian pay for fossil fuel subsidies? How does this compare to what we are investing towards our Net Zero Emissions 2030 target?

I used a dataset "IEA Net Zero Roadmap (2023 update)" from the International Energy Agency for the global figures (from 48 countries), and data analysis from IMF Fossil Fuel Subsidy Database (2023), and an eye-opening report from Australia Institute (2024–25). I used RAWCharts for exploring how to format the dataset; Data Illustrator to lay it out, and Canva to layout the final poster graphic.

It was a steep learning curve to work out how to pull data from different sources into a format that could tell the story. I explored many different charts in RAWgraphs. It got too complicated to try to create nested data so I ended up simplifying and using the key source dataset from the IEA for the visualisation.

I sketched ideas around hidden costs, organic materials of fossil fuels, money and person pictographs before ending up with a simple "smokestack" concept to work with.

It was now time to try to create the concept using real data in DataIllustrator - another steep learning curve! I found watching the Gallery videos really helpful to learn how to use this tool. While it was easy to create a simple bar chart for all 48 countries, I wanted to tell the story through a more powerful concept - the idea of fossil fuel subsidies as people's money "going up in smoke". I used a custom "smoke cloud" shape instead of simple circle for each of the countries and organised the X/Y axis to show a cloud cluster.

I used Canva to layout a poster of the final visualisation. I printed out and tested a version of this and made some adjustments based on user feedback.