One of every four people on earth is vulnerable due to living in close proximity to fossil fuel infrastructure including millions of children, according to a new global study.
This includes 520 million children, who live within a 5 km radius of such infrastructures, as per the study released on the bylines of the 30th Conference of the Parties (COP30) the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Belem, Brazil on November 12.
The report has further strengthened the rapidly magnifying demand of creating a roadmap for making the world fossil fuel-free by 2050. It was a decision taken by global leaders unanimously at COP28 but, till now, looks unlikely in the absence of clear intermediate targets and a structured process in place.
“Fossil fuel infrastructure poses risks for the health and livelihoods of at least 2 billion people globally, roughly a quarter of the world’s population,” reads the report prepared by Amnesty International and Better Planet Laboratory (BPL), that points out to the harms caused by fossil fuel industries to climate, people and ecosystems across the world.
Amnesty International is a United Kingdom based international non-governmental organisation focused on human rights; BPL, located at the University of Colorado Boulder, is represented by a group of data scientists working for the cause of a better and fairer planet.
The report titled Extraction Extinction, a copy of which is with this correspondent, demonstrates how “the full lifecycle of fossil fuels destroys irreplaceable natural ecosystems and undermines human rights, particularly of those living near fossil fuel infrastructure”. “Proximity to coal, oil and gas infrastructure has been proven to elevate risks of cancer, cardiovascular illness, adverse reproductive outcomes and other negative health outcomes.”
The study undertook a first-of-its-kind mapping exercise to estimate the potential scale of global harm from existing and future sites for the production of fossil fuels.
“The ever-expanding fossil fuel industry is endangering billions of lives and irreversibly altering the climate system. Our work reveals the scale of the massive risks posed by fossil fuels throughout their lifespan. Coal, oil and gas projects are driving climate chaos, harming people and nature,” said Agnès Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International.
“This report provides yet more evidence of the imperative for states and corporate actors to ‘defossilise’ the global economy to mitigate the worst impacts of the climate crisis on human rights. The age of fossil fuels must end now,” added the expert.
According to the report methodology, BPL mapped the scale of exposure to fossil fuel infrastructure, by overlaying data on the known locations of fossil fuel infrastructure sites with gridded population data, datasets that are indicators of critical ecosystems, data on global gridded daily emissions, and data on Indigenous Peoples’ land tenure.
The report claims that the actual impact may be higher as “BPL’s findings are likely to underestimate the true global scales due to discrepancies in documentation of fossil fuel projects and limited census data across countries”. The report is also based on in-depth qualitative research on people including directly affected individuals from artisanal fishing communities in Brazil, Canada and coastal communities in Senegal, apart from using open-source data and remote sensing to corroborate and visualise findings.
“These were complemented by the results and conclusions of Amnesty International’s past research and ongoing campaigns against oil and gas giants in Ecuador, Colombia and Nigeria,” said the report. “It was very important to have a thorough and credible methodology,” added an official.
“At least 2 billion people live within 5 km of more than 18,000 operating fossil fuel infrastructure sites distributed across 170 countries around the world. Of these, more than 520 million are estimated to be children and at least 463 million are living within 1 km of the sites exposing them to much higher environmental and health risks,” finds the report.
Indigenous Peoples are disproportionately exposed, with over 16 per cent of global fossil fuel infrastructure sited on Indigenous territories. At least 32 per cent of the existing fossil fuel sites mapped out overlapped with one or more ‘critical ecosystems.’
“The fossil fuel industry continues to expand, with more than 3,500 fossil fuel infrastructure sites either proposed, in development, or under construction globally. BPL figures suggest that such expansion could put at least 135 million additional people at risk,” warns the report.
The report puts onus on China and India for the heightening risk claiming that though the number of oil and gas projects is set to increase across all continents, the number of coal plants and mines is increasing mostly in China and India.
“Governments have pledged to phase out fossil fuels, but we now have clear evidence showing new fossil fuel projects continue to expand preferentially in our most critical ecosystems globally. This is a direct contradiction with stated climate goals,” said Ginni Braich, a senior data scientist at BPL who led the paper on its behalf.
“From the Niger Delta to the Amazon and Canada, the fossil fuel industry sacrifices communities, human rights and ecosystems everywhere they go. Frontline communities, fishers, Indigenous peoples are among those most impacted. Amnesty International’s Extraction Extinction report calls out that regions in the Americas and West Africa have been made into human and ecological sacrifice zones by the fossil fuel industry,” Tzeporah Berman, Chair and Founder of the Fossil Fuel Treaty Initiative told this correspondent.
She further told this correspondent that a new level of multilateral cooperation is required to accelerate the transition away from oil, gas and coal. “We cannot negotiate with extinction. It’s time for states to act in line with international law and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling to protect climate,” added the expert urged the key stakeholders and countries to stop expansion, manage an equitable phase out of production, and join the global effort of 17 countries pushing for a Fossil Fuel Treaty.
Amnesty International also supported the call to urgently adopt and implement a Fossil Fuel Treaty.
“States should be embarking on a full, fast, fair and funded phase out of fossil fuels, and a just transition to renewable energy produced in a manner consistent with human rights,” said Callamard.