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25% of the international people resides within five kilometers of active coal, oil, and gas sites, potentially threatening the health of exceeding two billion people as well as critical ecosystems, based on pioneering analysis.

Worldwide Distribution of Oil and Gas Sites

More than 18.3k petroleum, natural gas, and coal mining sites are presently spread throughout one hundred seventy states worldwide, covering a extensive area of the world's land.

Proximity to drilling wells, processing plants, transport lines, and further coal and gas installations elevates the risk of cancer, breathing ailments, cardiac problems, preterm labor, and death, while also posing serious risks to drinking water and air cleanliness, and degrading soil.

Nearby Residence Dangers and Future Development

Nearly half a billion individuals, encompassing over 120 million youth, presently live less than 1km of oil and gas operations, while a further three thousand five hundred or so new facilities are presently planned or being built that could require one hundred thirty-five million additional residents to experience pollutants, flares, and accidents.

The majority of active sites have created toxic zones, converting surrounding communities and essential habitats into often termed sacrifice zones – highly contaminated locations where low-income and marginalized groups shoulder the unequal burden of contact to contaminants.

Medical and Ecological Impacts

This analysis describes the severe medical toll from extraction, processing, and shipping, as well as illustrating how leaks, burning, and construction harm irreplaceable natural ecosystems and undermine civil liberties – notably of those residing near petroleum, natural gas, and coal mining facilities.

This occurs as world leaders, without the USA – the largest past source of greenhouse gases – gather in Belém, Brazil, for the 30th environmental talks during growing frustration at the lack of progress in eliminating coal, oil, and gas, which are driving planetary collapse and rights abuses.

"The fossil fuel industry and their state sponsors have claimed for many years that societal progress needs oil, gas, and coal. But we know that in the name of financial development, they have instead served greed and earnings without red lines, breached liberties with widespread impunity, and damaged the atmosphere, biosphere, and marine environments."

Global Discussions and Global Urgency

The environmental summit takes place as the the Asian nation, the North American country, and the Caribbean island are dealing with superstorms that were strengthened by increased atmospheric and sea temperatures, with states under growing pressure to take decisive steps to regulate coal and gas companies and end mining, financial support, authorizations, and use in order to comply with a landmark ruling by the international court of justice.

Last week, reports indicated how over over 5.3k oil and gas sector lobbyists have been given entry to the UN climate talks in the past four years, hindering climate action while their paymasters pump record quantities of oil and natural gas.

Study Methodology and Findings

This data-driven analysis is founded on a first-of-its-kind geospatial project by experts who cross-referenced information on the known sites of coal and gas operations locations with demographic figures, and collections on critical environments, carbon outputs, and tribal territories.

33% of all functioning oil, coal mining, and gas facilities overlap with multiple critical ecosystems such as a swamp, jungle, or aquatic network that is teeming with species diversity and important for CO2 absorption or where ecological decline or disaster could lead to habitat destruction.

The true international scale is possibly larger due to omissions in the reporting of fossil fuel sites and limited census records in states.

Environmental Injustice and Tribal Populations

The results show deep-seated ecological injustice and racism in exposure to petroleum, gas, and coal mining operations.

Native communities, who represent five percent of the international people, are unequally subjected to dangerous oil and gas infrastructure, with a sixth facilities situated on Indigenous areas.

"We endure intergenerational battle fatigue … Our bodies will not withstand [this]. We are not the starters but we have borne the impact of all the conflict."

The expansion of oil, gas, and coal has also been associated with territorial takeovers, traditional loss, population conflict, and loss of livelihoods, as well as force, online threats, and legal actions, both penal and non-criminal, against community leaders non-violently challenging the building of conduits, mining sites, and further infrastructure.

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