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25% of the international residents lives less than five kilometers of active fossil fuel facilities, likely risking the health of exceeding 2bn people as well as essential ecosystems, per groundbreaking analysis.

Worldwide Presence of Fossil Fuel Operations

In excess of eighteen thousand three hundred petroleum, natural gas, and coal mining facilities are currently located throughout one hundred seventy countries globally, covering a large area of the world's terrain.

Nearness to extraction sites, industrial plants, pipelines, and other fossil fuel facilities elevates the risk of tumors, lung diseases, heart disease, early delivery, and fatality, while also causing grave dangers to drinking water and air cleanliness, and damaging terrain.

Close Proximity Risks and Future Growth

Almost 463 million residents, counting over 120 million minors, presently live less than 0.6 miles of fossil fuel sites, while another three thousand five hundred or so upcoming facilities are presently proposed or under development that could force one hundred thirty-five million additional residents to endure emissions, flares, and spills.

Nearly all functioning operations have established pollution concentrated areas, transforming nearby communities and essential habitats into often termed disposable areas – severely contaminated zones where poor and marginalized populations bear the unfair load of proximity to contaminants.

Medical and Environmental Consequences

The report details the severe physical consequences from drilling, processing, and movement, as well as demonstrating how leaks, flares, and building destroy priceless environmental habitats and weaken civil liberties – notably of those dwelling in proximity to petroleum, gas, and coal mining facilities.

It comes as world leaders, without the US – the biggest historical source of carbon emissions – meet in Belém, the South American nation, for the 30th global climate conference during growing disappointment at the slow advancement in eliminating coal, oil, and gas, which are causing global ecological crisis and civil liberties infringements.

"Coal and petroleum corporations and its government backers have argued for a long time that human development needs fossil fuels. But it is clear that under the guise of prosperity, they have instead favored profit and revenues without limits, infringed liberties with near-complete impunity, and damaged the air, biosphere, and seas."

Global Discussions and Worldwide Pressure

The climate conference takes place as the Philippines, Mexico, and Jamaica are dealing with major hurricanes that were worsened by warmer air and ocean temperatures, with states under increasing urgency to take strong action to regulate oil and gas corporations and halt mining, subsidies, permits, and consumption in order to adhere to a landmark judgment by the international court of justice.

Last week, revelations indicated how over over 5.3k fossil fuel industry lobbyists have been granted admission to the UN climate talks in the recent years, obstructing emission reductions while their sponsors pump record amounts of petroleum and natural gas.

Research Approach and Findings

The quantitative research is based on a first-of-its-kind mapping effort by scientists who compared information on the documented locations of coal and gas facilities sites with census data, and datasets on vital habitats, greenhouse gas emissions, and tribal territories.

A third of all functioning oil, coal, and gas sites overlap with several key ecosystems such as a wetland, woodland, or aquatic network that is abundant in wildlife and important for CO2 absorption or where natural degradation or calamity could lead to ecosystem collapse.

The true international scale is likely higher due to omissions in the reporting of fossil fuel projects and incomplete demographic information throughout states.

Ecological Inequity and Indigenous Peoples

The data demonstrate deep-seated ecological unfairness and racism in exposure to petroleum, natural gas, and coal industries.

Indigenous peoples, who represent five percent of the international people, are unfairly vulnerable to health-reducing coal and gas operations, with one in six locations positioned on Indigenous lands.

"We face multi-generational struggle exhaustion … Our bodies cannot endure [this]. We are not the instigators but we have taken the impact of all the conflict."

The growth of oil, gas, and coal has also been linked with territorial takeovers, heritage destruction, community division, and income reduction, as well as force, online threats, and lawsuits, both criminal and legal, against population advocates peacefully resisting the building of conduits, drilling projects, and further facilities.

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