Monday 22 March 2025, 14:00-16:00
Centro de Convenciones Cartagena de Indias | CCCI, Room TBC

Registration and Speakers Coming Soon

The world’s reliance on fossil fuel use has had devastating impacts on human health and ecological wellbeing - over 80% of air pollution deaths can be linked directly to the extraction, refining, and burning of fossil fuels. To meet unsustainable demand for this finite resource, the industry has begun to pursue so-called “unconventional” exploration methods over the past few decades, such as hydraulic fracking, that is used to extract oil and gas from deep within the earth, releasing many hazardous air pollutants in the process.

Communities living near an extraction site have a 66% chance of suffering from cancer associated with air pollution, including damage to respiratory health and staggering rates of cancer. Most often those impacted are racially marginalized groups, Indigenous peoples, and impoverished communities. Many of these have taken a leadership role in combatting these developments and their associated harms. In Colombia for example, the Fracking Free Colombia Alliance has been working to stop two advancing bills in 2024: one to approve the fracking pilot projects and the other to convert gas as a transition fuel. 

This event will bring together frontline activists, health professionals, and other voices from the anti-fracking movement across the Americas to share stories of the health impacts of fracking-related industrial air pollution, share stories from the communities combatting these harms, and discuss the need for the health sector to mobilize behind policies to phase out fracking and the need for a Fossil Fuel Non Proliferation Treaty.