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A quarter of the international people dwells inside three miles of operational fossil fuel projects, possibly risking the health of more than two billion human beings as well as vital natural habitats, according to pioneering research.

International Spread of Coal and Gas Operations

More than 18,300 petroleum, gas, and coal mining locations are now located across one hundred seventy countries worldwide, occupying a large territory of the planet's surface.

Proximity to drilling wells, refineries, transport lines, and further oil and gas operations elevates the risk of tumors, lung diseases, heart disease, preterm labor, and death, while also creating serious threats to water sources and air quality, and degrading land.

Close Proximity Dangers and Future Expansion

Nearly over 460 million residents, including one hundred twenty-four million youth, currently reside within 1km of fossil fuel locations, while a further 3.5k or so upcoming facilities are currently under consideration or being built that could force over 130 million additional residents to experience fumes, burning, and spills.

Nearly all functioning operations have created contamination zones, turning nearby communities and vital habitats into so-called expendable regions – highly toxic areas where low-income and disadvantaged communities bear the unfair load of proximity to contaminants.

Medical and Environmental Impacts

This analysis outlines the harmful health toll from mining, refining, and transportation, as well as illustrating how seepages, ignitions, and building destroy priceless natural ecosystems and undermine individual rights – especially of those dwelling near oil, gas, and coal operations.

The report emerges as world leaders, not including the US – the biggest long-term source of carbon emissions – meet in Belem, the South American nation, for the 30th annual global climate conference in the context of rising disappointment at the lack of progress in eliminating fossil fuels, which are causing global ecological crisis and rights abuses.

"The fossil fuel industry and its state sponsors have maintained for decades that human development requires coal, oil, and gas. But we know that in the name of financial development, they have rather promoted self-interest and earnings unchecked, infringed rights with near-complete immunity, and damaged the air, biosphere, and oceans."

Environmental Talks and Worldwide Pressure

The environmental summit occurs as the Philippines, Mexico, and Jamaica are dealing with major hurricanes that were strengthened by warmer atmospheric and sea heat levels, with countries under mounting pressure to take firm measures to regulate coal and gas corporations and stop extraction, subsidies, permits, and demand in order to comply with a landmark decision by the international court of justice.

Last week, revelations indicated how over 5,350 coal and petroleum lobbyists have been given entry to the international environmental negotiations in the recent years, hindering emission reductions while their employers pump historic amounts of oil and gas.

Analysis Approach and Data

The statistical research is derived from a first-of-its-kind location-based exercise by researchers who cross-referenced information on the documented positions of oil and gas operations sites with census figures, and collections on critical environments, carbon emissions, and Indigenous peoples' territories.

One-third of all operational oil, coal mining, and natural gas facilities overlap with several key environments such as a swamp, forest, or river system that is teeming with species diversity and vital for CO2 absorption or where ecological deterioration or disaster could lead to habitat destruction.

The actual global scale is probably higher due to gaps in the documentation of coal and gas operations and incomplete demographic information across nations.

Ecological Inequality and Tribal Peoples

The data reveal entrenched environmental inequity and discrimination in exposure to petroleum, gas, and coal mining sectors.

Tribal populations, who account for one in twenty of the international population, are disproportionately exposed to dangerous coal and gas facilities, with 16% facilities situated on native lands.

"We endure multi-generational resistance weariness … Our bodies cannot endure [this]. We have never been the initiators but we have endured the impact of all the conflict."

The growth of oil, gas, and coal has also been associated with land grabs, traditional loss, population conflict, and economic hardship, as well as violence, internet intimidation, and lawsuits, both illegal and civil, against local representatives calmly opposing the development of pipelines, drilling projects, and additional infrastructure.

"We are not pursue money; we just desire {what