The Threat List

Status:Environment

GlobalEnvironmentNews-derivedmedium confidenceSourcing reviewed 2026-08-19

Oil Spills and Gas Flaring

Oil spills contaminate marine and coastal ecosystems, while routine gas flaring releases climate-warming gases and harmful air pollutants. The supplied evidence documents substantial health burdens from U.S. flaring and broader ecological and socioeconomic harm, but does not establish a unified global toll.

Severity score

48.2

Serious · default weighting

Trajectory

Steady

How this is ranked

What this is

Score breakdown

Each factor is a 0–100 relative severity index, not the raw figure or a specific time period. The actual counts and periods are listed under "Standardized Impact" on the right.

Loss of life

31

Direct and attributable mortality, normalised across annual and cumulative tolls.

Lives negatively impacted

36

People displaced, injured, food-insecure, exposed or otherwise materially harmed.

Financial cost

60

Direct damage, lost output and health-system spend attributable to the event.

Environmental impact

78

Emissions, habitat and biodiversity loss, contamination and irreversibility.

Trajectory

62

Whether the situation is escalating, and how much worse it is plausibly getting.

Audit trail

Everything this entry has been through — when it was first searched for, queued, reviewed and approved, and how its figures and rank have moved since.

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