Illustrating the threats of fossil fuel production

The report details a rapid threat identification methodology and the accompanying Fossil Fuel Atlas web platform, which allows stakeholders to overlay fossil fuel infrastructure data with environmental and social datasets. It argues that fossil fuel production drives ecological degradation through land conversion, pollution, and biodiversity loss, while also causing social harms such as the dispossession of Indigenous lands and health risks. The document provides a comprehensive taxonomy of these threats and demonstrates the tool's application through case studies in Western Africa, Egypt, Mozambique, South Africa, and the Philippines.

• Fossil fuel production is a primary driver of the global ecological crisis, contributing to all five primary drivers of ecological degradation: land/sea use change, direct exploitation, climate change, pollution, and invasive alien species.
• Current global fossil fuel production plans for the next two decades are projected to reach 120% of the levels compatible with a 1.5°C warming limit.
• Fossil fuel infrastructure significantly overlaps with protected areas; over 43,000 protected areas (15.7% of the 273,000+ in the World Database on Protected Areas) overlap with current and planned production areas.
• A substantial portion of the global population is exposed to health risks from the industry, with over 700 million people living within 20km of an oil refinery, which is approximately 10% of the world's population.
• Fossil fuel extraction often occurs in water-stressed regions, with an estimated 31-44% of unexploited oil and gas deposits located in areas that are already water-stressed or would become so due to extraction.
• The production process causes severe land-based ecological damage, including deforestation and fragmentation, which are particularly acute for unconventional fuels like shale gas and tar sands due to their expansive physical footprints.
• Fossil fuel production poses specific threats to Indigenous and communal lands, often bypassing traditional land rights and resulting in cultural dispossession and state-sponsored violence.
• The Fossil Fuel Atlas provides a five-step GIS methodology to identify threats: collaborating with stakeholders, selecting spatial datasets, overlaying data, making impacts visually explicit, and assembling a final product.

APA

Dorman, M., & Kartha, S. (2022). Illustrating the threats of fossil fuel production. Stockholm Environment Institute. https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/fossil-fuel-atlas-global-brief.pdf

Chicago

Dorman, Maxwell, and Sivan Kartha. Illustrating the threats of fossil fuel production. Stockholm Environment Institute, 2022. https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/fossil-fuel-atlas-global-brief.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Dorman |first1=Maxwell |last2=Kartha |first2=Sivan |title=Illustrating the threats of fossil fuel production |publisher=Stockholm Environment Institute |date=2022 |url=https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/fossil-fuel-atlas-global-brief.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{dorman2022illustrating, author = {Dorman, Maxwell and Kartha, Sivan}, title = {{Illustrating the threats of fossil fuel production}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, year = {2022}, url = {https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/fossil-fuel-atlas-global-brief.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }