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One-fourth of the world's people lives inside five kilometers of functioning coal, oil, and gas sites, potentially threatening the health of over two billion people as well as critical environmental systems, based on pioneering analysis.

International Distribution of Oil and Gas Sites

More than eighteen thousand three hundred petroleum, gas, and coal mining locations are now spread across over 170 countries globally, covering a large territory of the planet's surface.

Proximity to extraction sites, processing plants, transport lines, and further fossil fuel installations raises the threat of tumors, lung diseases, cardiovascular issues, early delivery, and death, while also creating grave risks to water sources and air quality, and harming terrain.

Close Proximity Risks and Proposed Growth

Approximately 463 million individuals, including over 120 million minors, presently live inside 1km of coal and gas sites, while a further three thousand five hundred or so upcoming projects are presently planned or being built that could compel 135 million more residents to endure emissions, flares, and accidents.

Most functioning projects have formed pollution zones, transforming surrounding populations and vital environments into so-called sacrifice zones – severely polluted locations where poor and vulnerable communities bear the unequal load of proximity to pollution.

Physical and Ecological Impacts

The report describes the harmful medical impact from extraction, treatment, and shipping, as well as demonstrating how leaks, burning, and development destroy irreplaceable environmental habitats and undermine individual rights – especially of those living in proximity to oil, natural gas, and coal operations.

It comes as world leaders, excluding the US – the biggest long-term emitter of carbon emissions – gather in Belém, the South American nation, for the thirtieth climate negotiations amid growing disappointment at the lack of progress in phasing out fossil fuels, which are causing planetary collapse and rights abuses.

"The fossil fuel industry and its state sponsors have maintained for many years that economic growth requires coal, oil, and gas. But we know that masked as financial development, they have rather favored profit and earnings without limits, breached entitlements with almost total immunity, and damaged the atmosphere, natural world, and seas."

Global Discussions and International Pressure

The climate conference is held as the Philippines, the North American country, and the Caribbean island are suffering from extreme weather events that were strengthened by warmer air and ocean heat levels, with nations under growing pressure to take strong measures to regulate coal and gas companies and stop extraction, subsidies, permits, and use in order to comply with a significant decision by the global judicial body.

In recent days, reports indicated how more than five thousand three hundred fifty fossil fuel industry advocates have been given admission to the international global conferences in the recent years, blocking emission reductions while their paymasters extract record quantities of oil and natural gas.

Research Process and Results

This data-driven analysis is derived from a first-of-its-kind mapping effort by researchers who compared information on the documented sites of oil and gas infrastructure sites with population figures, and collections on critical habitats, climate releases, and native communities' areas.

33% of all active oil, coal mining, and natural gas sites overlap with several key ecosystems such as a swamp, jungle, or aquatic network that is abundant in species diversity and vital for emission storage or where natural decline or catastrophe could lead to habitat destruction.

The true global scope is probably larger due to deficiencies in the documentation of oil and gas sites and limited census data in states.

Environmental Inequality and Native Populations

The findings demonstrate long-standing environmental unfairness and racism in contact to oil, natural gas, and coal mining industries.

Indigenous peoples, who represent 5% of the international residents, are unequally subjected to life-shortening oil and gas infrastructure, with one in six sites positioned on tribal areas.

"We face long-term battle fatigue … We literally will not withstand [this]. We are not the instigators but we have borne the brunt of all the violence."

The spread of fossil fuels has also been connected with territorial takeovers, traditional loss, community division, and loss of livelihoods, as well as violence, digital harassment, and court cases, both illegal and non-criminal, against community leaders non-violently challenging the development of pipelines, drilling projects, and further operations.

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