Human Rights Clinic Partners with Amnesty International to Launch New Report: Why Fossil Fuels Threaten Human Rights
New York, November 12, 2025—At the UN Climate Change Conference (COP30) today, the Smith Family Human Rights Clinic and Amnesty International released a report finding that fossil fuel infrastructure puts the human rights of at least 2 billion people at risk.
The report, Extraction Extinction: Why the lifecycle of fossil fuels threatens life, nature and human rights, reveals how extracting, processing and transporting fossil fuels undermines the human rights of nearby communities and causes severe environmental degradation, health risks, and loss of culture and livelihood. The report is based on a first-of-its-kind mapping exercise and multi-country qualitative research.
“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 ‘defossilize’ the global economy to mitigate the worst impacts of the climate crisis on human rights. The age of fossil fuels must end now.”
At least 2 billion people live within 5km of more than 18,000 fossil fuel infrastructure sites across 170 countries. More than 520 million are estimated to be children and at least 463 million are living within 1km of the sites, exposing them to much higher environmental and health risks. Despite the risks, the fossil fuel industry continues to expand, with more than 3,500 fossil fuel infrastructure sites either proposed, in development, or under construction globally.
The Human Rights Clinic partnered with Amnesty International to conduct qualitative research for the report in Brazil (Guanabara Bay) and Canada (Wet’suwet’en territory). Students traveled with Amnesty to interview directly affected individuals and human rights defenders. Over ninety interviews document the toll of the fossil fuel industry on communities and the environment.
“Most affected groups condemned the power imbalance between their communities and corporate operators, as well as the lack of effective remedy. The fossil fuel era is inevitably coming to an end and states must stop criminalizing environmental human rights defenders fighting to protect their communities,” said Candy Ofime, Researcher and Legal Advisor on climate justice at Amnesty International.
Ofime is a former student in the Human Rights Clinic, where she worked with communities in Papua New Guinea to document the impacts of mining on the right to water. Now one of the world’s leading climate justice experts, Ofime worked closely with current Clinic students to plan and carry out investigations.
Human rights defenders interviewed for the report explained impacts on human health, cultural rights, local livelihoods, and fragile ecosystems. Impunity for these harms is frequent. Jardel Nascimento de Oliveira, an artisanal fisher from Guanabara Bay in Brazil, explained: “I see oil in the water, nearly every day, we see those stains, we talk, we complain to the authorities, but there’s no law, no justice, there’s impunity.”
These qualitative findings are paired with innovative global mapping work led by Better Planet Laboratory at the University of Colorado Boulder that shows the impact of fossil fuel infrastructure on communities, Indigenous territories, and critical ecosystems such as tropical rainforests, coral reefs, and wetlands. Nearly a third of existing fossil fuel infrastructure overlaps with critical ecosystems, and 16% of infrastructure sits on Indigenous territory.
For more information, please visit Amnesty International’s website. Free online courses based on the report’s findings are available through Amnesty’s Human Rights Academy.
The Columbia Law School Smith Family Human Rights Clinic works to advance human rights around the world, and to train the next generation of strategic advocates for social justice. The clinic works in partnership with civil society organizations and communities to carry out human rights investigations and advocacy.
This press release and the report do not represent the institutional views of Columbia Law School or Columbia University.
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