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25% of the international population lives less than five kilometers of active oil, gas, and coal projects, potentially threatening the well-being of over 2bn people as well as essential environmental systems, based on groundbreaking research.

Global Spread of Coal and Gas Infrastructure

In excess of 18,300 petroleum, gas, and coal locations are currently located across over 170 nations globally, taking up a vast expanse of the Earth's surface.

Closeness to drilling wells, industrial plants, conduits, and other oil and gas facilities increases the danger of malignancies, respiratory conditions, cardiovascular issues, premature birth, and fatality, while also posing grave threats to water supplies and air cleanliness, and harming land.

Close Proximity Dangers and Planned Expansion

Approximately 463 million people, counting over 120 million children, presently dwell within one kilometer of coal and gas locations, while another 3,500 or so new projects are presently proposed or being built that could force over 130 million more people to face emissions, burning, and leaks.

The majority of operational operations have formed toxic hotspots, converting adjacent populations and critical ecosystems into so-called sacrifice zones – severely polluted areas where poor and disadvantaged groups carry the unfair weight of exposure to pollution.

Physical and Ecological Effects

This analysis details the harmful physical consequences from extraction, treatment, and transportation, as well as demonstrating how leaks, flares, and construction damage irreplaceable ecological systems and undermine civil liberties – notably of those living near petroleum, gas, and coal mining operations.

The report emerges as global delegates, excluding the US – the largest past emitter of carbon emissions – assemble in Belém, the South American nation, for the thirtieth climate negotiations in the context of rising concern at the limited movement in ending coal, oil, and gas, which are driving planetary collapse and civil liberties infringements.

"The fossil fuel industry and their state sponsors have argued for many years that societal progress depends on coal, oil, and gas. But research shows that masked as prosperity, they have in fact favored self-interest and earnings without red lines, breached entitlements with near-complete exemption, and destroyed the climate, natural world, and oceans."

Environmental Discussions and International Pressure

The environmental summit occurs as the the Asian nation, Mexico, and the Caribbean island are dealing with extreme weather events that were worsened by increased air and ocean temperatures, with nations under growing demand to take firm steps to control oil and gas corporations and halt extraction, subsidies, authorizations, and consumption in order to follow a historic ruling by the international court of justice.

Last week, disclosures indicated how over five thousand three hundred fifty coal and petroleum advocates have been allowed admission to the international climate talks in the past four years, blocking environmental measures while their paymasters extract record amounts of petroleum and natural gas.

Study Methodology and Data

The quantitative study is based on a groundbreaking geospatial exercise by scientists who compared information on the known positions of oil and gas operations locations with population figures, and records on critical environments, climate outputs, and native communities' areas.

A third of all operational oil, coal, and natural gas sites overlap with multiple essential environments such as a swamp, woodland, or waterway that is abundant in biodiversity and vital for carbon sequestration or where natural decline or catastrophe could lead to environmental breakdown.

The real international scale is possibly higher due to gaps in the reporting of oil and gas operations and incomplete census records in nations.

Environmental Injustice and Native Communities

The results demonstrate entrenched ecological unfairness and discrimination in proximity to oil, gas, and coal mining industries.

Tribal populations, who account for 5% of the international population, are unfairly subjected to life-shortening coal and gas operations, with 16% sites situated on Indigenous areas.

"We face multi-generational struggle exhaustion … Our bodies will not withstand [this]. We have never been the instigators but we have taken the brunt of all the aggression."

The spread of coal, oil, and gas has also been connected with land grabs, cultural pillage, social fragmentation, and loss of livelihoods, as well as aggression, internet intimidation, and legal actions, both penal and non-criminal, against local representatives calmly resisting the development of conduits, extraction operations, and other facilities.

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