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25% of the world's people lives less than three miles of active fossil fuel facilities, possibly endangering the health of over 2bn human beings as well as vital natural habitats, per pioneering research.

International Distribution of Fossil Fuel Operations

Over eighteen thousand three hundred oil, gas, and coal mining facilities are currently distributed throughout over 170 states worldwide, taking up a extensive area of the Earth's terrain.

Closeness to drilling wells, refineries, transport lines, and other oil and gas facilities increases the threat of cancer, respiratory conditions, cardiac problems, preterm labor, and fatality, while also posing severe dangers to water supplies and air quality, and damaging soil.

Immediate Vicinity Hazards and Proposed Expansion

Approximately half a billion individuals, including one hundred twenty-four million children, currently dwell less than 1km of coal and gas locations, while a further 3,500 or so new sites are currently proposed or being built that could require one hundred thirty-five million more individuals to endure emissions, flares, and accidents.

Nearly all functioning projects have formed pollution concentrated areas, turning adjacent populations and essential ecosystems into so-called disposable areas – highly polluted zones where economically disadvantaged and vulnerable populations bear the disproportionate burden of contact to contaminants.

Physical and Ecological Consequences

The study details the harmful health consequences from mining, treatment, and shipping, as well as demonstrating how leaks, burning, and construction harm unique ecological systems and undermine civil liberties – particularly of those living in proximity to oil, gas, and coal mining infrastructure.

This occurs as international representatives, excluding the USA – the greatest past source of carbon emissions – assemble in Belem, Brazil, for the 30th annual environmental talks during growing concern at the lack of progress in phasing out fossil fuels, which are causing environmental breakdown and human rights violations.

"Oil and gas companies and its public supporters have claimed for a long time that human development needs coal, oil, and gas. But we know that in the name of financial development, they have instead promoted greed and revenues unchecked, violated entitlements with almost total immunity, and destroyed the climate, ecosystems, and oceans."

Global Talks and Global Urgency

Cop30 is held as the Philippines, the North American country, and the Caribbean island are reeling from major hurricanes that were strengthened by increased air and ocean temperatures, with countries under growing pressure to take firm measures to oversee coal and gas corporations and end mining, government funding, licenses, and demand in order to follow a significant ruling by the global judicial body.

Last week, disclosures showed how in excess of over 5.3k oil and gas sector lobbyists have been given access to the international global conferences in the last several years, obstructing environmental measures while their paymasters drill for unprecedented amounts of oil and gas.

Study Process and Findings

This data-driven analysis is derived from a innovative geospatial project by researchers who cross-referenced data on the identified positions of oil and gas facilities sites with population figures, and records on essential environments, carbon emissions, and Indigenous peoples' areas.

33% of all operational petroleum, coal, and gas sites coincide with multiple critical habitats such as a marsh, jungle, or river system that is teeming with wildlife and important for CO2 absorption or where environmental decline or calamity could lead to ecosystem collapse.

The actual global scope is possibly higher due to omissions in the recording of coal and gas projects and incomplete population information throughout nations.

Environmental Inequality and Indigenous Peoples

The findings demonstrate entrenched ecological inequity and racism in proximity to petroleum, gas, and coal industries.

Tribal populations, who comprise one in twenty of the international people, are disproportionately vulnerable to dangerous oil and gas infrastructure, with 16% facilities positioned on Indigenous territories.

"We face multi-generational battle fatigue … Our bodies won't survive [this]. We were never the initiators but we have taken the force of all the aggression."

The expansion of oil, gas, and coal has also been connected with property seizures, cultural pillage, social fragmentation, and loss of livelihoods, as well as force, online threats, and legal actions, both criminal and legal, against local representatives calmly opposing the building of transport lines, drilling projects, and additional infrastructure.

"We are not pursue wealth; we only want {what