The Fossil Fuels Atlas, launched yesterday, is an interactive mapping platform which allows the public to identify the locations of existing and planned fossil fuel projects, and the protected territories and sensitive ecosystems potentially impacted by these projects.
The tool was developed by the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development (IGSD), and the Global Energy Monitor (GEM).
“Companies and countries continue to expand fossil fuel production and are doing so into areas that are culturally and biologically important” the press release reads.
The organisations want the tool to function as ‘an early warning’ before such projects are developed.
“When you give people the tools to alert the public and policymakers to the damaging impacts that extraction poses to their own communities, livelihoods, and ecosystems – then they take action” said Sivan Kartha, SEI senior scientist and head of the Fossil Fuel Atlas team. [BM]
Table of Contents
Approach
The Fossil Fuel Atlas draws on an extensive scientific literature about energy transition and the effects of fossil fuel and other extractive industries, and a rigorous methodology for identifying and visualising threats and potential impacts. These are described in the peer-reviewed Fossil Fuel Atlas Global Brief, summarised below.
Background
Fossil fuels account for over three-fourths of greenhouse gas emissions (IEA, 2021). This is fuelling a climate crisis that is projected to devastate social and ecological systems across the globe (IPCC, 2022; Rinawati et al., 2013).
Fossil fuel production is already at a historic high, and is poised to continue growing (SEI and UNEP, 2021). Many of the reserves targeted for extraction lie in highly sensitive ecological areas (Harfoot et al., 2018), and global fossil fuel production is known to have myriad adverse impacts on people and the environment (Butt et al., 2013).
In view of the extent of the adverse social, ecological and climatic threats of fossil fuel production, the Fossil Fuel Atlas project is systematizing an approach for creating rapid, scientifically grounded map visuals that make transparent the potential threats posed by prospective fossil fuel production projects.
Fossil Fuels: Driving the Ecological and Climate Crisis
The Fossil Fuel Atlas draws on an extensive scientific literature about the effects of fossil fuel and other extractive industries.
Through an open-access and interactive global mapping platform, and a range of transparency tools, backed by comprehensive data, users can generate maps relating to a wide variety of fossil fuel, energy, industry, ecological and social factors.
Data, maps and visualisations from the Fossil Fuel Atlas can be used to illuminate a range of potential risks, impacts and threats. Maps can be produced at a project, country, regional or global scale.
Geostories are a way of telling powerful stories by taking a reader through a sequence of maps, data visualisations and written commentary.
These can be developed and hosted on the Fossil Fuel Atlas, or they can be downloaded for use in other websites or communication materials.
Impact
The Fossil Fuel Atlas is building a library of analysis from researchers and organisations around the world drawing on data, maps and visualisations developed using the Fossil Fuel Atlas to inform knowledge and decision-making about the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy.
The mission of the Fossil Fuel Atlas is to develop and share information to bridge science and policy and support the movements to curb fossil fuels, promote clean energy, and protect communities, ecosystems, and a stable climate.
The Fossil Fuel Atlas is designed to enable a wide variety of users to generate data-rich maps, materials, and communications content to support their efforts to phase out fossil fuels, advocate solutions, and transition to a safer and fairer future.
Purpose
The Fossil Fuel Atlas has three main goals:
To expand access to cutting-edge information, methodologies and web-based mapping tools addressing the social and ecological impacts of fossil fuel, energy and related industrial systems;
To empower and equip the widest possible range of actors – affected citizens, researchers, journalists, policymakers – to analyze threats, build power and advance alternatives.
To help address some of the world’s greatest challenges by bridging science and policy in support of global movements to protect rights, conserve biodiversity, counter climate change, and accelerate the transition to clean energy.