Playing Against the Clock: Global Sport, the Climate Emergency and the Case For Rapid Change - Rapid Transition Alliance
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Playing
Against the Clock:
Global Sport, the Climate
Emergency and the Case
For Rapid Change
David Goldblatt
Global Sport, the Climate Emergency and the Case For Rapid Change 1
CONTENTS
Introduction: Playing 2 3. Playing catch up: Global sporting 14
against the clock federations and environmental policy
1. The stadium is on fire! 4 4. Conclusions: No normal sport 20
The impact of climate in an abnormal world
change on global sport
Appendices 23
2. Putting up a big score: 10
Endnotes 38
Sport’s contribution to
climate change Acknowledgements 41
Introduction:
Playing against the clock
Like every other industry and cultural sector, global sport has
been brought to a shuddering halt by the coronavirus pandemic;
leagues and competitions have been in suspended animation,
mega events from the Tokyo Olympics to Euro 2020 have been
postponed, the suspension of ticket sales and broadcasting deals
have placed many institutions and their staff in penury.
Although some professional leagues are Coronavirus is not climate change, but
returning to empty stadia, the longer there are a number of clear lessons
term fate of mass sporting crowds is from the current crisis: take the science
opaque. Yet devastating as this has been, seriously and assume the worst-case
something even more problematic is scenario can happen, act now not later,
waiting in the wings for the sporting circus. and act radically. The international
community in the form of the Paris Climate
Climate change is touching every aspect agreements, is committed to limiting
of human life and global sport is no global heating to 2°C with the ambition of
exception: in 2019, the Rugby World Cup going further to keep temperatures below
was disrupted by unprecedented pacific 1.5°C, and achieving carbon neutrality by
typhoons; in early 2020, the Australian 2050. However, the IPCC, whose job it is to
Tennis Open was disrupted by the smoke advise governments, argues that if we are
blowing in from the country’s devastating to mitigate the worst aspects of climate
bush fires. The Tokyo 2020 Olympics were change then we need to aim for the
forced to move long distance running 1.5°C limit, and make most of our carbon
events north of the capital as the city’s reduction in the next decade. In 2018,
sweltering summer weather now makes they concluded that this meant ‘rapid, far-
them impossible to run. reaching and unprecedented changes in
Playing Against the Clock 2
all aspects of society.’ If sport moved on is correct, make sport the equivalent of
this agenda, what kind of changes would nations as large and populous as Angola
it make? or Tunisia, and that is at the low end of
estimates.
In Section 1, The Stadium’s on Fire! I
review the many ways in which climate The sports world, to its credit, has not
change is already taking its toll on been entirely oblivious to environmental
global sport, and the scale of the risks issues over the last quarter of a century.
and difficulties ahead. Needless to say, The IOC, FIFA, and the more innovative
it’s not looking good: climatological and global and national federations, leagues
economic demise for winter sports and clubs, have begun to take notice and
awaits; heatwaves and heat strokes for even, on occasion, act. The UN has now
players and public alike, extreme weather included sport in its global climate action
that floods stadiums and grassroots framework and is aiming for carbon
playing fields; sea level rises that will neutrality for sport by 2050. However,
inundate football grounds and sweep as even our cursory survey in Section 3,
away golf links. Playing Catch Up, shows, the state of
sport’s environmental commitment and
Sport is not just a victim of change, governance is woefully inadequate. Only
however, but an important contributor too. a tiny fraction of the world’s thousands of
The IOC has a carbon footprint close to sporting bodies, federations, tournaments,
that of Barbados, global football’s is even leagues and clubs have signed up to the
larger. Sporting events are responsible for UN Sport for Climate Action Framework,
massive levels of aviation, carbon heavy even fewer have actual carbon
stadium construction, and mountains targets and plans to deliver on these
of unrecycled garbage, all making a commitments. At the same time, the petro-
significant contribution to the catastrophe chemical and aviation industries have
now engulfing us. a huge foothold in sport through their
multiple global sponsorships.
If the sports world is to make its own
contribution to climate change action, We are in extra time already. The Paris
then it needs to acknowledge its own role Agreements and the UN Sport for Climate
in creating the problem and radically Action Framework think we still have 30
reduce its carbon footprint, and thus it years on the clock and we can just leave
needs to know how much carbon it is the team to sort it out by 2050, but as the
actually producing. No one currently IPCC has argued, we really only have
knows, and the research that has been a decade or so to pull this game out
done on different sporting events and of the hat. So the time is now and the
institutions is very patchy. In Section 2: world of sport needs to begin massive
Putting up a Big Score, I work with what and immediate carbon reductions. In
is available and offer my best estimates the Conclusion: No Normal Sport in
of global sport’s carbon emissions, which, an Abnormal World, I outline some
if the order of magnitude I had calculated suggestions for beginning this process.
Global Sport, the Climate Emergency and the Case For Rapid Change 3
Doing so is a matter of money, politics, becoming the common sense of every day
and elite administration, of course, but action, and without a shot of hope that we
it is also a matter of mass mobilisation, are not too late in starting. Sport’s social
behavioural change and emotional reach could help catalyse the former,
commitment. We are not going to come its emotional currencies could inform
anywhere near our global carbon the later. As the great New York Yankee
reduction targets without a transformation catcher Yogi Berra said, “It ain’t over till
in our everyday habits of production and it’s over.”
consumption, without decarbonisation
1. The Stadium is on fire! The
impact of climate change on
global sport
In the bid document for the Tokyo 2020 things like this.” Since then the organising
Olympics, the organisers blithely claimed committee, apparently dissatisfied with the
that the city had “many days of mild and towel solution, has toyed with starting the
sunny weather,” during the proposed events in the middle of the night, spraying
games’ timetable in late July and early the entire course with water, asking
August. This would provide, they wrote, businesses on the route to turn on their air
“an ideal climate for athletes to perform conditioning and open their doors, before
at their best.”1 Maybe that was true back finally and thankfully abandoning the
in 1964, when the city last hosted the charade and shifting the marathon and
games, but that Olympics took place in the distance walking events to Sapporo,
October and there has been nearly half a over a 1,000 kilometres north.2
century of rising temperatures since. Thus,
in July 2018, as the city sweltered in record Tokyo 2020 is, of course, not the only
levels of humidity and heat, at its peak sporting organisation that has tried to
touching 41°C, and experienced dozens remain oblivious to the threats of climate
of deaths from heat stroke, the plan to run change, and to prevaricate when faced
the marathon and distance walking events by them. Nor will it be the last to have
at a similar time of year were sharply to bow to reality and shift its schedules.
questioned. Yuriko Koike, Mayor of Tokyo, To paraphrase Greta Thunberg, “The
when quizzed on the matter responded stadium is on fire!”, and no amount of
by pointing to the wet towel wrapped air conditioning and wet towels is going
around her neck, “This will make you feel to deal with it. Rising temperatures,
cooler if you wear it. I would like to use prolonged periods of drought, forest fires,
Playing Against the Clock 4new patterns of precipitation, extreme made by researchers at the University of
storms and rising seas levels are all, Waterloo, it is just one of many former
already making their presence felt in sport, hosts that are unlikely, for climatological
and there will a lot more of this to come. reasons, to be able to do so. Of nineteen
Doing something about it requires that we prior locations, only ten will still be reliable
stare these threats in the eye, right now. winter sports hosts in 2050, and just six
in 2080.6
Rising temperatures and
winter sports Heat waves, athlete
health and sporting
Climate change is, of course, not uniform, performance
but one almost universal consequence
of our current course is that average
In January 2018, England cricket Captain
temperatures will rise everywhere, and in
Joe Root was hospitalised at the end
mountainous regions, home to most winter
of the fourth day of play in that year’s
sports, that will mean less snow, falling
fourth Ashes test match. He was unable to
less often, and melting more quickly. The
continue batting the next day and was laid
organisers of the 2010 Vancouver winter
low by a combination of gastroenteritis
games wrote that, “the warmest weather on
and searing 40 degree temperatures.
record… challenged our ability to prepare
There is more of this on the way. The
fields of play for athletes in the venues
heatwave that swept across the northern
at Cypress Mountains.”3 Sochi 2014 was
hemisphere in summer 2019 saw the
warmer still. Many competitors complained
cancellation of the New York Triathlon,
about the lack of snow, and the slow, wet,
other running events, and many horse
heavy snow that was available was difficult
races in New York, Maryland, Pennsylvania
to manoeuvre on. These poor course
and Kentucky, as temperatures threatened
conditions meant that most medal winners
human and equine health alike. At both
came from amongst the first ten athletes
the Women’s World Cup in France, and the
to start in each competition, who had the
African Cup of Nations in Egypt, additional
huge advantage of racing on drier snow
water breaks during matches were
that was quickly degraded for those that
introduced in sweltering conditions.7
followed them. In Alpine skiing, freestyle
skiing and snowboarding events there
was, compared to the 2010 games, a five The physiology of overheating is complex,
per cent drop in athletes actually finishing but once you start hitting 33 to 35
their event, and a nine per cent increase in centigrade and you are playing sport,
competitor injuries.4 The Sochi Paralympics it’s all bad news, and there are going
saw a six fold increase in injury rates to be a lot more days like that in the
compared to Vancouver.5 global sporting calendar in the next few
decades. Memory, eye hand coordination,
and concentration all start suffering,
Sochi is unlikely to hold another winter
then there are the heat cramps, the heat
games. Indeed, according to predictions
exhaustion, and the heat stroke. When
Global Sport, the Climate Emergency and the Case For Rapid Change 5you combine these kinds of temperatures that allowed for play to continue if
with increasing humidity, which will be an humidity was sufficiently low prevailed.
increasing reality for much of the world The organisers were happy with this,
the impact on sport and public health is the players less so. Frank Dancevic
going to be devastating.8 actually began hallucinating on court
before vomiting and departing, one of
The Australian cricket authorities are a record nine players that retired during
one of the few sports organisations to the first round of play. One of them, Ivan
be sufficiently worried about future heat Dodig, recalled that on court he was
waves that they have commissioned thinking “I could maybe even die.” Daniel
research on the subject. Looking at Gimeno-Traver carried off a ball boy who
grassroots cricket, the Red Cliffs Cricket collapsed in the heat, Caroline Wozniacki
Association in the Mildura region has, saw her plastic water bottles melt, as
over the last forty years, experienced an did Wilfred Tsonga’s sneakers. Number
average temperature increase of 2.7°C 13 seed, John Isner, thought the wind on
during its matches and, can now expect court was like, “when I open the oven and
at the height of the season five and half the potatoes are done.” During the whole
more days during which temperatures tournament over 1,000 fans were treated
will exceed 38°C compared to 1980. for heat exhaustion.10
This kind of weather is already forcing
ns the foreshortening of games and even Things were even hotter at the 2018
requiring match cancellations. At the very US Open where temperatures on court
pinnacle of the game, the traditional peaked at 49°C. Officials mandated the
Melbourne Boxing Day Test has got some first use of the tournament’s extreme heat
fearsome days ahead of it. In the coming policy, allowing more and longer breaks
decades, the city is likely to experience an during matches. Nonetheless, five players
average of 26 days that exceed 35°C with retired from matches for heat-related
high summer maximums of 50°C. Other reasons. One of those, Richard Berankis,
test match hosts, like Adelaide and Perth, remarked, “They should have cancelled
will see a 60 per cent increase in 40°C the matches. It was not healthy… We are
plus days by 2030. Calls have already fit, but this was too much. It is dangerous
gone out to shift the Boxing Day Test to out there. The ATP doesn’t have a heat
November or March.9 rule but they should stop the matches.
They will not make a change until
The Australian and US Tennis Opens have someone dies.”11
given us a very clear sense of what sport
in these kinds of temperatures is going
to look like. The 2014 Australian Open
Drought
was played in the middle of a harsh heat
wave that saw four consecutive days of One inevitable consequence of more hot
temperatures above 41°C. Under old weather is less rain, and in many parts of
hot weather rules the tournament would the world that means more droughts. So
have been stopped, but recent changes far, cricket has been amongst the worst
Playing Against the Clock 6effected sports. In 2016, for example, court, while a violent coughing fit forced
thirteen 13 IPL games were moved from Dalalia Jakupovic to retire from the
Maharashtra due to the worst drought qualifying competition. New South Wales
for 100 years. More recently, as water spinner Steve O’Keefe, playing in Sydney
shortages continued, the Mumbai high at the time, described breathing the air
court forbade the Maharashtra Cricket while playing cricket, “like smoking 80
Association from receiving water from the cigarettes a day.”15 Even without forest
Pavana dam for its matches in Pune.12 fires, breathing the air while playing
The prolonged drought in Cape Town in
sport can be a real problem. During a
2018 saw water use at sports grounds,
peak air pollution episode in Delhi in
professional and amateur, severely
2017 cricketers playing in the India v Sri
restricted. The visiting Indian cricket team
Lanka game were vomiting on the pitch,
was told to shower for no more than 90
necessitating repeated breaks in play
seconds while club and school cricket
was cancelled half way through season and the installation of oxygen cylinders
across the whole Western Cape.13 Reports in their dressing rooms. England may not
of pitches cracking were widespread.14 boast pollution levels quite on the scale
Droughts also effect rivers’ rates of flow. of India’s mega cities, but it remains the
Lower water flow will have an impact case that ten county cricket grounds have
on multiple riverine sports (canoeing pollution levels that exceed World Health
for example) both in terms of sporting Organisation (WHO) recommendations.
performance and the cleanliness of water. Increasing temperatures also lead to
higher levels of ozone at ground level
which has a serious impact on pulmonary
Fires and air pollution functioning. Air pollution researchers have
found that high exposures diminish the
Another joker in the climate change athletic ability of football players, and the
pack is fire. Many habitats, like the quality of baseball official’s judgements.16
Australian bush, need periodic fires to
clear dead wood, germinate seeds and
return nutrients to the soil. However, these Storms, rains and event
ecological systems are being turned into
unstoppable conflagrations overwhelmed
cancellation
by longer periods of drought, hotter and
longer summers, and large scale and Extreme weather is not confined to hot
inappropriate human developments. The and dry seasons. On the contrary, the last
scale of the fires produced in the last few thirty years have seen a steady increase in
years has begun to impact on the world of the numbers of hurricanes and storms, and
sport. an increase in their average severity, while
many parts of the world are experiencing
The 2020 Australian Tennis Open was greater levels of precipitation, and new
played with air quality so poor that geographical and seasonal patterns of
players were struggling to breathe on rainfall.
Global Sport, the Climate Emergency and the Case For Rapid Change 7Caribbean cricket has, perhaps, been the play has been lost in five of the last ten
sport most severely impacted by these years.19 Even English football, a game
shifts. In 2017 James Ronald Webster not unused to rainy playing conditions,
Park in Anguilla was seriously damaged saw more than twenty football league
by Hurricane Irma, and just two weeks fixtures cancelled in the 2015/16 season.20
later Windsor Park cricket stadium in This kind of weather doesn’t only affect
Dominica was devastated by the category professional sport, but amateur and
5 Hurricane Maria.17 In 2019, Typhoon grassroots sport as well. In England in
Hagabis came ashore in Japan with such 2014, the average grassroots pitch lost
torrential rain and winds that three games five weeks per season to bad weather,
at the Rugby World Cup were cancelled. and a third of these pitches lost between
Less apocalyptic in scale but even more two and three months in a season.21
disruptive was Storm Ciara in 2020 which
saw the cancellation, in England, of one
Premier League game, six Women’s Sea level rises, land
Super League matches and widespread erosion and flooding
postponements in Dutch football and the
top two levels of Belgian football.18
Beaches are amongst our most important
natural sports fields. Sea level rises and
Less spectacular than hurricane and the inevitable land erosion that goes
storms, normal wind patterns will also with them threaten professional and
be subject to change, with implications recreational sport alike. For example, the
for sailing and windsurfing that are islands and archipelagos of the south
already being registered. Simultaneously, Pacific are amongst the landscapes
a general increase in the level of most threatened by sea level rises, and
precipitation is playing havoc with their rich rugby cultures, nurtured on
sporting schedules. In English cricket, their beaches, are equally imperilled.22
for example, 27 per cent of England’s California’s beaches and their surfing
home One Day Internationals since 2000 culture are also looking insecure. One
were played with reduced overs because recent study predicted that 18 per cent
of rain disruptions, and the number of the state’s most popular breaks will be
of rain affected matches has doubled lost by 2050, another 16 per cent will be in
since 2011; 5 per cent of matches have decline, and that two thirds of all beaches
been abandoned altogether over the in the southern half of California will be
last decade. Glamorgan County Cricket gone by the of end century.23
Club, always the wettest outpost of the
game, has experienced even greater
In more immediate danger from sea level
precipitation in the last twenty years. 1,300
rises and coastal erosion are seaside
hours of play, were lost to rain between
golf links. The R&A reports that one in
2000 and 2016, which is equivalent to
six of the British Open championship
217 days in total and more than a dozen
courses, including St Andrews, Troon and
a season. In addition, the club’s grounds
Carnoustie, are unlikely to last out the
have been flooded six times. Across the
century. Scotland’s Montrose golf course,
whole county championship, 175 days
Playing Against the Clock 8one of the five oldest in the world where Of the 92 league teams in England, 23,
records of the game date back to 1592, almost one in four, can expect partial or
has been forced to sacrifice its third tee, total annual flooding of their stadiums
to provide sufficient rock defences for the by 2050. The four under threat in the
even more threatened first and second current Premier League are Southampton’s
holes. It expects to lose more in the near St Marys, Norwich’s Carrow Road,
future. The Royal North Devon golf club, Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge and West
entirely flooded by Storm Deirdre in 2018, Ham’s Olympic Stadium. Seven are at
has seen the eighth hole disappear into risk in the Championship including Hull
the shingle beach. The golf courses of even City and Cardiff City’s grounds which will
Donald Trump – the climate denier in chief both be entirely under water by 2050.
– are taking action, like Doonsberg in the Middlesborough’s Riverside, which will
Republic of Ireland where the organisation itself avoid flooding, will nonetheless
has sought planning permissions to build require a flotilla of boats to get fans
a huge rock barrier to protect three of its to the ground across the wide-flooded
holes from sea level rises.24 plains of the city. Doncaster, one of five
clubs at risk in League One, will suffer
In 2015, English football got a glimpse the same fate. League Two will also see
of the future when the torrential rain five clubs flooded out, including Grimsby
accompanying Storm Desmond saw Town’s Blundell Park which will sit beneath
Carlisle United’s Brunton Park flooded the new North Sea. Things will be wet
and the club forced out of the stadium for in Netherlands too where the stadiums
seven weeks, at considerable financial of Alkmaar Den Haag, Groningen,
cost.25 There really is going to be more of Heerenveen and Utrecht can look forward
this in sport. Using mapping technology to total annual flooding with partial floods
and mainstream climate change and sea for Ajax and Feyenoord.
level models, we can see that Bordeaux’s
Matmut Atlantiq stadium will, by 2050, be
completely flooded on an annual basis,
while Werder Bremen’s Weserstadion
can expect annual partial floods. In
the United States the NFL’s Jacksonville
Jaguars and their TIAA Bank Field, and
the NBA’s Miami Heat and their American
Airlines Arena, can expect the same. The
New York Giants & New York Jets’ MetLife
Stadium and the New York Mets’ Citi
Arena will be completely flooded every
year. In Canada, the Edmonton Oilers’
Rogers Place and Toronto FC’s BMO Field
will be part flooded on an annual basis.
However, this is as nothing to the fate
awaiting the football stadiums of England
and the Netherlands.26
Global Sport, the Climate Emergency and the Case For Rapid Change 92. Putting up a big score: Sport’s
contribution to climate change
Given how obsessed the world of sport process and suggest a figure for sport’s
is with counting and statistics, it is carbon emissions that is at least the right
remarkable how little counting of carbon order of magnitude.
has been conducted. The only reasonably
thorough and rigorous studies have
been commissioned by the IOC, FIFA Estimating the emissions
and UEFA in relation to the Olympics, the of the Olympic games,
World Cup and the European Football
championships, alongside a small body World Cups and the
of work on individual football clubs, the global sporting circuit
lower leagues of English football and
North America’s National Hockey League.
Consider this:
However, the carbon emissions of most
sports in most countries, and most events
and leagues, let alone grassroots sports, Estimates of the carbon emissions from
are a mystery. the Summer Games – including both the
Olympics and the Paralympics – since
2008 have been:27
In addition two important ancillary
components of the global sports circuit, the
broadcasting industry and the sportswear Beijing 2008 1.2 MT
industry, both of which have a substantial
London 2012 3.4 MT
carbon footprint are absent for these
calculations. Neither is simple to calculate Rio 2016 3.6 MT
as the sportswear industry is rather coy
about its carbon emissions, and we have (MT = Million tonnes CO2e)
only just been to calculate the carbon
costs of different kinds of digital sports
Beijing’s emissions were calculated
consumption (on TV/tablets/ phones etc).
without including spectator travel and
Their absence means that the round figure
accommodation and are, therefore,
for sport’s carbon footprint generated in
significantly lower than its successors. All
this paper is a significant understatement.
the estimates include venue construction,
but London and Rio added the carbon
Generating a figure, then, for the carbon emissions associated with at least
footprint of global sport is going to some of the transport and other urban
require a lot of assumptions, guesses and infrastructure built alongside the games
estimates, but there is, I would argue, just and are thus, our best guides.28
enough information for us to begin that
Playing Against the Clock 10Estimates for the Winter Games since 2010 sporting world championships which
have been: occur themselves on a biannual or
annual basis. Given events on the global
Vancouver 2010 0.25 MT sports circuit have less infrastructure
costs than an Olympic games, and fewer
Sochi 2014 0.52 MT international spectators, and therefore
smaller carbon footprints, we could add in
Pyeongchang 2018 1.59 MT the continental competitions, international
circuits/tours, youth games, that most
sports put on beyond their singular world
Vancouver did not include the
championships. A similar proxy could
emissions associated with new
perhaps be suggested for the World Cup
transport infrastructure, which were very
and the world of international football
considerable, while Sochi’s estimates in
(qualifiers and continental tournaments,
this regard were considered very low.
continental club competitions, youth world
cups, women’s World Cups). So, each year
Estimates for the FIFA World Cup (which global sports produce the same carbon
includes the Confederations Cup held emissions as a hypothetical year in which
the year prior to the World Cup as well both Olympics and the World Cup take
as associated events, like draws and place.
banquets) since 2010 are:
Taking a rough average of the estimates
South Africa 2010 2.75 MT above, that is around 7-8 million tonnes
for the Olympics and the World Cup
Brazil 2014 2.27 MT and then, if we add in the other major
international sporting circuits – F1, cricket,
Russia 2018 2.16 MT
tennis, golf, rugby league etc – a ball park
figure might be 10 million tonnes a year
The Brazilian and Russian estimates did for global sport.
not include stadium construction carbon
and are thus on the low side. Athlete and Another way of coming at this is to look
spectator travel accounted for 67 per cent at the research in Sportcal’s 2017 Global
of South African emissions, 83 per cent Sporting Impact report which, over a four
in Brazil and 74 per cent in Russia, which year cycle 2013-2106, compiled a list of
offers a useful rule of thumb for calculating the leading 317 global sporting events.30
spectator carbon emissions at other They found that there were 54 million
international events.29 spectators at them, of which the World
Cup and the winter and summer Olympics
I wonder, in the case of the summer and accounted for 10 million. So that’s about
winter Olympics, if we could allow the a fifth of the total spectatorship, but given
games to stand proxy for the carbon their greater carbon intensity, at least a
footprint of world sport over the four quarter of emissions, which would give us
year cycle during which they take place? a similar figure to the first estimate.
After all, they are, in effect, multiple
Global Sport, the Climate Emergency and the Case For Rapid Change 11Professional sports This would mean an average for each
club of about 10,000 tonnes a year, which
leagues squares very well with one of the few
other carbon footprint calculations – for Vfl
The data here is a lot less satisfactory. Wolfsburg in the Bundesliga.32
The single best study of carbon emissions
for a football club is for Fluminense, from Coming at it another way we can look at
Rio, in 2014. This calculated that the the work done on the lower tiers of English
club’s activities (all teams, aviation and football which calculates that spectator
spectator travel included) emitted 2,500 transport produces, in a season, 55,000
tonnes. If this were the average for the tonnes of carbon from around 11 million
Brazilian top division teams (many have spectators. The EPL has 14.5 million
bigger crowds than Fluminense, so it may spectators, a simple ratio here suggests
be an underestimate) then the league as that EPL spectators are emitting at least
whole would be emitting 50,000 tonnes 72,500 tonnes a year from transport
a season.31 alone.33 A second study on carbon
emissions from food, drinks and waste at
Translating this into emissions for other lower league football in England gives
other leagues, in richer countries which an annual total of around 30,000 tonnes.
generally emit more carbon, generate Applying the same logic as above that
more waste etc, we can adjust be looking is around 40,000 tonnes a year from the
at the ratio of per capita emissions EPL.34 From a third study we can add on
between Brazil and another country. In the another 1000 for the carbon emitted by
case of the English Premier League (EPL), EPL squads transport arrangements
the ratio would be 2.37/5.59. So we can and that gives estimate of around 103–
assume that an EPL club produces approx 104,000 tonnes.35
2.35 times as much carbon as a Brazilian
club. So that gives a figure for the EPL of The first two numbers are both likely to
110,793 tonnes a year. be underestimates as Premier League
clubs attract spectators from a much great
However, the EPL has a lot more geographical area than the lower leagues
spectators than the Brazilian (including international travellers) and
championship, and spectators are the consume more food and more energy
biggest carbon emitters in this situation. while going to the game. If one made
So, again, a ratio needs to be calculated: a 50 per cent increase on waste and
spectator emissions that gives us a figure
or around 150,000 tonnes. Note there is no
Brazilian Championship
calculation here for the emissions created
Spectators 8.5 million
by other stadium operations, construction,
EPL Spectators 14.5 million training, women’s teams, youth teams
etc. Looking at the kinds of contributions
these make in Brazil, an increase of 10-
This makes an estimated carbon total for 20,000 tonnes a year gives us an estimate
the EPL of 110,793 x 1.7 = 200,117 tonnes. of 170,000 tonnes for the EPL which is
Playing Against the Clock 12of the same order of magnitude as our Similar back of the envelope calculations
first estimate of 200,000 tonnes a year. give us figures of around 140,000 tonnes
An average of the two would be 185,000 a year for La Liga and Serie A, 570,000
tonnes of carbon a year. tonnes for Japanese baseball, and a total
for the top 17 professional leagues of
If the EPL, on these calculations, were 7.9 million tonnes of carbon per annum
a yardstick for professional sport in the on a total attendance of 280 million. The
global north, we can hazard a guess at next 20 or so leagues are responsible for
the footprint of other leagues by taking around two million tonnes of carbon. The
a ratio of EPL spectators to their own total global attendance at national sport
attendance figures and then allowing for events is hard to calculate but it seems to
the different carbon footprints of different be that these big leagues in big countries
countries with a ratio of per capita carbon probably account of about half of the
outputs. world’s sports attendance. So that gives
a ball park figure of around 20 million
tonnes and a total for global sport of
So a calculation for American baseball’s around 30 million tonnes – approximately
MLB would be: the same as the whole of Denmark or
twice that of Ethiopia.
MLB/EPL Spectators
68.5 million/14.5 million = 4.72 Large as these figures may seem, they
are almost certainly a considerable
US/UK emissions:
underestimate. Consider this. The size
16.1/5.6 = 2.875
of the global sports industry has been
MLB Emissions: calculated at around $500 billion a year.37
4.72 x 2.875 x 185,000 = 2.5 million Global GDP is $85 trillion which means
that sport is about 0.6% of the global
economy which is responsible for 50 to
This would give a figure of 2.5 million 60 billion tonnes of CO2e. Sport may be
tonnes for MLB and approximately 0.75 less carbon intensive than some economic
million tonnes for NHL, NBA and the NFL. sectors – like concrete production – but it
The NHL has calculated it 2016 stadium also very heavy on aviation, so its 0.6 per
carbon footprint at 182,355 tonnes, cent of global GDP is probably something
and that does not include spectator or close to generating 0.6 per cent of global
team travel, and for international and emissions, which makes it responsible for
domestic events this makes up 65–80 per 300–350 million tonnes; that means sport
cent of carbon emissions. So, a figure of is not the equivalent of Bolivia or Angola,
around three quarters of million a year, but of Spain or Poland. Either way, or
calculated by our estimates, is not entirely somewhere in the middle, at this perilous
implausible.36 moment in our climate and planetary
history, this is too much.
Global Sport, the Climate Emergency and the Case For Rapid Change 133. Playing catch up: Global
sporting federations and
environmental policy
Sport and Then IOC President Samaranch first spoke
on the matter at Davos in 1991, but the
environmental policy main energies pushing the IOC came
from outside. In the realm of international
The longest standing, and perhaps most politics the UNEP conference in Rio in
important trigger for the sports world’s 1992 set a new, baseline environmental
engagement with the environment has agenda for every international and
been the Winter Olympics. Since their national organisation, in every sector
inception in 1924 the games have of economy and society. Beyond the
invariably served as an opportunity to games the 1990s saw an outburst of anti-
advertise winter sports facilities in fragile golf protest, particularly in fragile rural
mountain ecosystems, as well as build ecosystems in China and South East Asia
the transport and tourism infrastructure where local farmers were dispossessed
that delivers the paying public. As early by developments.38 In the realm of
as 1932, the proposed bobsleigh run for international sport the local organisers
the Lake Placid games, which required of the Lillehammer winter games of 1994
the cutting down of numerous trees, was and the Sydney summer games of 2000s,
successfully opposed by local residents. pressured by their local environmental
The 1968 Grenoble games were notorious movements set new standards for
for sports facilities that were unsuited environmental engagement at mega-
to or degraded their surroundings. The events in terms of venue design, energy
ski jump was too exposed to the wind, and water use and recycling.
disrupting training. The downhill ski runs
were at an altitude too low for snow After Lillehammer, the IOC and UNEP
cover to be guaranteed. The luge run was convened a sport and environment
too low to guarantee ice. All were later commission, and in 1999 the principles of
abandoned, a fact noted by a coalition of environmental sustainability were written
environmentalists and low tax republicans into the Olympic charter. The following
who forced and won a referendum year the IOC developed its first set of
opposing Denver holding the 1976 games. environmental protocols for bidding
and staging Olympic events, requiring
Nonetheless, it took till the early 1990s, prospective and actual hosts to closely
and more environmental controversy monitor their environmental impact. They
around the 1992 Albertville games, for have been recently updated in the IOCs
the IOC to really take the issue seriously. Agenda 2020 strategy document and, the
organisation has now announced that
Playing Against the Clock 14from 2030 the games will not be merely some offsets in relation to the emissions
carbon neutral, but carbon negative. from the 2010 and 2014 World Cups,
However, the IOC’s power to influence and incorporated environmental criteria
local organisers once a bid has been into the bidding rounds for the 2018
allocated has proved very limited, and and 2022 World Cups. Qatar 2022 will,
nothing in its current practice suggests according to the organisers, be a carbon
this is likely to change.39 Athens failed to neutral World Cup, though quite how this
meet almost every single environmental accounts for the hydrocarbon soaked
objective it set itself, as well as leaving wealth that has made the show possible
the largest legacy of empty and unusable is unspoken. UEFA had planned to foot
stadiums. Beijing’s air pollution was worse the entire offsetting bill for spectator
at the end of its Olympic programme than aviation emissions generated by the now
when it began. London promised to offset postponed Euro 2020 European Football
its carbon emissions, and then failed to do Championships.
so.40 Amongst the winter games Vancouver,
Sochi and Pyeongchang, environmental
degradation took many forms: building The trouble with
on sacred Native American land in offsetting
Canada, tearing up a national park in
Russia, and felling ancient and spiritually
Offsetting is not in itself a panacea.
revered forest in South Korea.41 As we
Some schemes have been shown to be
know from decades of environmental
worse than useless, either not working or
and climate policy implementation any
even increasing emissions. Other offsets
credible governance system needs serious
schemes may fund projects which are
compliance and sanctioning mechanisms.
in themselves good, and might absorb
This is what happens in their absence.
carbon, but not in a like-for-like way. Fossil
fuels are a stable long term way to store
That said, a least the IOC has been carbon, but if you plant trees to offset
engaged. Very few sports organisations, the use of oil for example, a tree might
greenwash aside, have had any kind live for only a few years or decades, not
of serious environmental programme, store carbon for millions of years. So, first
beyond installing recycling bins at events, and foremost, sport needs to reduce its
and certainly not in the field of climate absolute emissions by minimising its use of
change. The only real exception has fossil fuel energy, switching to renewable
been international football and it has energy where possible and cutting out
hardly begun. The game’s engagement unnecessary travel and choosing lower
with climate change was initiated by carbon transport options. Then, when it
the German organisers of the 2006 hits the wall of cuts that can be made in
men’s World Cup, who, together with these ways, it should alongside investing
the German government, invested half a in carbon capture, choose to compensate
million euros in energy and water saving rather than just offset for its remaining
technologies and offsetting 100,000 tonnes emissions, including making payments
of emissions from spectator aviation (likely communities who are most vulnerable to
a massive underestimate). FIFA paid for the climate emergency.
Global Sport, the Climate Emergency and the Case For Rapid Change 15While all of these initiatives have been environmental slogans in the sports
a useful start they remain a fragmented world since, but there has been precious
and very incomplete package. In an little action, especially amongst the
effort to bring some systematic thinking governing bodies of sport and the leading
and political urgency to the problem, the professional and commercial leagues.
UNFCCC and some of the leading world
sports organisations launched, in 2016, the In 2018, Arnout Geeraert and Play the
UN Sport for Climate Action Framework Game published a remarkably detailed
and invited the sporting world to sign up.42 survey of global and national sporting
institutions, in which environmental
The framework requires organisations issues were one of 52 minutely
to take systematic measures to reduce detailed and researched dimensions
their carbon emissions and reach climate of governance.43 Geeraert examined,
neutrality by 2050. Along the way they are inter alia, whether organisations had a
asked to educate their athletes, clubs and published environmental policy and a
spectators on climate change issues, and staff member centrally concerned with the
advocate for sustainable solutions. There issue; whether their bidding process for
are, however, no targets in the framework, tournaments and the staging of games
and no mechanisms of control, and, above had environmental targets; whether they
all, an inadequate sense of urgency. encouraged their national and local
The climate science is increasingly clear: affiliates to engage with the issue; and
the “limit temperature rises to 2°C by whether they cooperated with other
2050” model will be pretty catastrophic organisations on environmental policies?
in its own right, and that we have to do Hardly the most rigorous or demanding
the vast majority of our decarbonisation of tests? Yet, despite such a low bar, he
in the next decade. If the past two found that only one of the five global
decades of environmental policy in sports organisations he examined – FIFA – was
organisations is anything to go by then up to this minimal mark, while FINA
saying to global sport that 2050 is the (Aquatic sports), the IHF (Hockey) and the
target is a sure fire guarantee of nothing ITF (Tennis) couldn’t manage even twenty
being done for another generation. percent of these minuscule requirements.
The results for national sports associations
in Europe was dismal, with the average
The state of play: Sports national body in athletics, swimming,
federations, leagues tennis and handball just as bad, and
only as high as it was because of the
and the environment exceptional records of Danish and
Norwegian associations. In a follow up
It is now almost twenty-five years since the survey conducted in 2019 on six additional
IOC made environmental sustainability world sports federations, only two – FEI
a pillar of the Olympic movement, and (Equestrianism) and FIS) (Skiing) had all
two decades since the Sydney Olympics the environmental governance measures
claimed to be “the greenest games in place, but the FIVB (Volleyball), and IIHF
ever.” There has been no shortage of (Ice Hockey) have almost none, and the
Playing Against the Clock 16FIG (Gymnastics) and IBU (Biathlon) were Bringing up the tail there is a miscellany
a long way short of a minimum standard of marathons, organising committees,
of environmental good governance.44 reasonably esoteric sports bodies – Bowls
Australia and the International Rafting
Our own quick survey of global sporting Federation, for example – the Mets and
and bodies and national leagues (the the Yankees, three clubs from MLS, Vfl
details of which are in the appendix) Wolfsburg and Forest Green Rovers.
suggests that things haven’t moved on A merry band, perhaps, but hardly a
very much. Given the really very minimal comprehensive squad.
commitments entailed in signing up to the
UN Sports and Climate Action Framework Of course signing up to the UN Framework
it is remarkable just how few have taken is no guarantee that a sports federation
the plunge.45 The IOC, FIFA, UEFA and the or club will have environmental policies
IPC (Paralympics) were early signatories and plans consummate with their newly
and have been joined by World Athletics, acquired commitments. There have
World Rugby, the UCI (Cycling) and the been, as we shall see in more detail
global bodies for taekwondo, wrestling below, many one-off environmental, low
and sailing. But this leaves the majority carbon initiatives in global sport, and in
of sports federations represented at the the fields of stadium design and waste
Olympics outside the framework. From management some developments.
amongst winter sports, only the world ice However, tackling climate change clearly
hockey and skiing federations have joined, requires more than one-off ventures and
which makes one wonder what the people well-meaning guidelines. At the very
in charge of luge and bobsleigh think they least organisations require a written,
are going to be sliding on in the future. strategic, long term plan that looks to
make their sport carbon neutral by 2030.
The four major tournaments of the world Currently, among sports federations, only
tennis circuit are all signatories, yet cricket, the IOC and World Athletics have such
which is equally, if not more, at risk from a document, while amongst professional
extreme heat is barely present. Two clubs leagues and events only Formula 1 and
from Melbourne are there but no sign of the NHL have made serious carbon
the ICC or the big national cricket boards. commitments. FIFA are planning carbon
Golf, the US Golf Association aside, is neutral World Cups and UEFA plans a
conspicuous by its absence. Amongst the carbon neutral European Championship,
biggest professional commercial leagues but this leaves great swathes of their
there are major gaps. In North America activities unaccounted for. The rest,
the NFL, the NBA and MLS have signed even those that have signed up to the
but not NHL or MLB. In Europe, from the framework, have either strategies that fall
five biggest football nations, the DFB short of this or none at all.
and the English FA are in, but neither the
Bundesliga nor the Premier League are. In Perhaps more telling than the presence
Spain La Liga has joined, but not Spain’s or absence of any document or policy
football federation, and neither federation framework, is the very real presence
or league from France or Italy is present. of petrochemical companies, airlines
Global Sport, the Climate Emergency and the Case For Rapid Change 17and vehicle manufactures as sponsors
First steps: Sport and
and advertisers in the global sport.
Gazprom are top tier sponsors of carbon emissions
FIFA, UEFA and world bobsleigh; Total
sponsors badminton, triathlon and the UEFA
Confederation of African Football; Esso Perhaps the biggest challenge for
pairs with the International Ice Hockey global sport is dealing with the carbon
Federation, the Azerbaijani state oil emissions from spectator attendance,
company, SOCAR, is another UEFA especially at international events, which
sponsor, while its Italian equivalent, ENI, generate huge amounts of air traffic.
sponsors Serie A. Airlines are equally UEFA experimented at the 2016 European
enmeshed in global sport with their own Football Championships with a campaign
portfolios of promotion: Qatar Airlines and app that would allow fans to
(FIFA); Lufthansa (the DFB, Modern offset their own carbon emissions when
Pentathlon); Air Canada (Ice Hockey); and attending the tournament; but the take
up was lamentably low. Consequently,
Emirates (Asian Football Confederation,
UEFA decided to absorb the entire costs
the English Football Association).
of offsetting the aviation emissions for
EURO 2020 themselves. If global sport is
Both these hydrocarbon sectors to continue in anything close to its current
are present in the top leagues of form this has, at the minimum and taking
European football, where petrochemical account of the weaknesses of offsetting,
sponsorships include: Total at RB Leipzig to be the default model for every single
and Union Berlin, Gazprom at Schalke international sporting event.47
04, Suncor at Liverpool, Ineos at Nice,
and AVAV Energeisa at Eibar in Spain. World athletics
Airline sponsorships include: Emirates In 2019 World Athletics unveiled its
(Arsenal, AC Milan, Real Madrid), Etihad environmental strategy and it is the first
(Manchester City), Qatar Airlines (Roma, really serious attempt to go carbon neutral
PSG) and smaller carriers at Verona, amongst sports federations.48 It does
Reims, Real Valladolid, Newcastle United, not, as yet, commit to dealing with the
West Ham United and Norwich City. emissions generated by spectators, but it
does commit to transforming the emissions
This is not to suggest that some sports of the organisation itself, the hosts of
organisations aren’t beginning to make the global events it is involved with, and
real changes, and below I list some all the sponsors it works with. All are
of the more innovative and important expected to be carbon neutral by 2030
based on a ten per cent reduction per
developments, but they are, as yet, too
year, year on year, over the next decade.
limited in their scope, and too few in their
This is the bare minimum that every other
number and we are getting very close to
sports organisation needs to devise for
the final whistle.46
itself.
Playing Against the Clock 18World sailing to build the first new wooden stadium
World Sailing’s Sustainability Report in Britain for over a century, and the first
2030, is one of the few other documents carbon zero stadium ever.51 More recently
from amongst Olympic sports federations Forest Green have been joined by Real
that commits to a carbon reduction target, Betis from Sevillia in their commitment to
with a plan to cut emissions at events by carbon neutrality
50 per cent by 2024, as well introducing
higher environmental standards for boats
German football
themselves: for example, to participate in
The Bundesliga itself has not signed
the 2028 Olympic Games, 90 per cent of a
up to the UN Sports for Climate Action
boat must be recyclable, and waste from
Framework, but many of its member
the production process must be halved
clubs have been taking action. Both
compared to 2018.49
Mainz FC and SC Freiburg have almost
a decade of environmental work behind
Formula 1
them, pioneering recycling, green waste
Hitherto the world’s number one advert
management and the use of renewable
for burning carbon and unsustainable
energy in football. Werder Bremen has
lifestyles, Formula 1, has undergone
built one of the largest solar panel arrays
something of a Damascene conversion
in football, introduced ferry services to
and pledged, spectator travel aside, to
the stadium to cut down on car use, and
be carbon zero by 2030. Racing the cars
has actually banned car parking around
themselves is a minuscule 0.7 per cent of
the quarter of a million tonnes of carbon the stadium on match days. All three
the events and the teams emit each year. of these clubs encouraged their staff
The real issues, as usual, are the transport to attend the Friday for Future climate
costs of moving teams, cars, sponsors and strikes. TSG Hoffenheim, has been
spectators around the world, primarily investing in African forestry, sustainable
by air, which F1 plans to offset, but with textile and environmental education
all the attendant issues outlined above, projects. Augsburg FC invested heavily
by investing in carbon capture and in a geothermal energy system to make
reforestation.50 their new stadium carbon neutral while
VfL Wolfsburg has signed up to the UN
Forest Green Rovers Framework, and, almost uniquely in
Forest Green Rovers, in Nailsworth in the the world game, calculated its carbon
west of England, play in League Two, footprint. Given this kind work, and
the fourth level of English professional widespread support for these issues
football, but they are the first UN certified amongst German fans, the Bundesliga
carbon zero football club in the world. The has the opportunity to create a framework
club uses 100 per cent renewable energy, that would make the Bundesliga the first
has switched to vegan food for staff carbon zero league in the world.52 The
and fans, installed extensive rainwater French authorities have recently launched
recycling, a solar powered lawn mower their own collective effort – the NGO
and plenty of electric vehicle charging Football Ecologie France, to make
points. It now has planning permission French football carbon zero.53
Global Sport, the Climate Emergency and the Case For Rapid Change 194. Conclusions: No Normal Sport
in an Abnormal World
The rallying cry of the anti-apartheid and though we may find our way through
sports movement of the late twentieth the pandemic, this will still be threatened
century calls to us now. Then, there could, by climate change. It is no surprise that
morally and politically, be no normal sport sport did not predict and prepare for
if one played with the representatives of coronavirus, but with climate change
a violent and authoritarian regime where there is no excuse; we have had the pre-
race determined who you could play with match brief, the dossier, the video play
and how. Racism and exclusion in sports back and all the data. What time is it?
has not gone away, but now it is joined It’s game time.
by a new abnormality – the risks, dangers
and disruptions posed by climate change
• All global sporting federations and
to playing sport, to playing safely and
their national members, and all
happily on this planet. It’s worth adding
professional sports leagues and tours
that the climate emergency places a
need to sign the UN Sport for Climate
disproportionate burden on people wtih
Action Framework.
low incomes in the global South, and
black and minority ethnic communities in • Of course, the framework needs to be
the global North. The sports world needs tougher. At a minimum, all signatories
to make some fundamental changes, now. must commit, within one year of
signing, to draw up and publish a
In 2020 the world has been given comprehensive ten year plan that will
a master class in the dynamics of ensure that their own operations and
catastrophe. The impact of the coronavirus that of their sport, including spectator
pandemic on sport has demonstrated the travel, are carbon zero by 2030.
fragility of our institutions, but also the • These documents need to be drawn
possibility of radical, rapid change. Our up to a standard of at least the detail
rationed exercise and limited access to of World Athletics, setting very clear
open space reminds us of the inequalities annual targets and steps to achieve
of access to sport facilities and activities, them. Presidents and CEOs need to
but also of our profound and universal
take personal responsibility for their
need to move and play. The eerie silence
delivery.
of football games played behind closed
door games has spoken to our loneliness • This requires an entirely new level of
and separation, and, in its absence, to monitoring and reporting from sports
the power and the joy of human crowds. bodies which must be externally
These insights are worth preserving. reviewed by an independent body
Above all the idea that our need to play is created and funded by the global
an essential component of the good life, sports industry.
Playing Against the Clock 20• After 2030, any global sports events or Fewer tournaments and competitions,
tours that are not carbon zero should held less often, might be part of the
be cancelled or postponed until they solution. Either way, the sports world
are. Sports federations that are not must commit to the very highest
carbon zero should be excluded from standards of carbon offset programme
the Olympics. National federations for their own and their spectators
that had not made sufficient progress emissions.
could be excluded from international
• Government and other public bodies,
competition by their sports federations.
from sports ministries to the European
• The leading professional and Union, that fund sporting organisations
commercial tours and leagues should must make carbon zero plans a
do the same, and membership of precondition of any future monies.
that tour or that league, for clubs and
• All sports federations, global and
franchises, should become dependent
national, need to survey the impact of
on them doing the same as well.
climate change on grassroots sport,
Progress on carbon reduction could
and establish funding mechanisms
be part of the annual audit that clubs
to support its response to these
undergo and a precondition of their
problems. Perhaps most important of
participation. Host venues for tours like
all, the global sports industry needs to
the European Golf Tour or the ICC’s
reprioritise grassroots and local sport
test matches and ODI competitions,
(low carbon) over professional and
for example, should make similar
global sport (high carbon).
demands on their hosts and events.
Achieving this will involve a monumentally
• The same strictures should be applied
complex and demanding set of tasks.
to any company that wants to be
It is well beyond the reach of this
a sponsor or broadcaster of any
paper to outline all the ways which
signatory to the framework. They
sporting organisations and events could
need to sign up, have a carbon zero
decarbonise, but they would certainly
commitment, and show how their
include: new stadiums and other facilities
business, including all the activation
adopting entirely new building standards
events and advertising conducted
and zero carbon materials, served
around sports, is reducing and
overwhelmingly by walking, cycling and
compensating for its emissions.
public transport; every event needs
• It goes without saying that global sport to minimise its energy consumption,
needs to wean itself of petro-chemical transform its food and waste cultures,
and aviation sponsorship as soon as cut out plastic, recycle everything,
possible. decarbonise its use of transport, including
athletes, spectators and officials, and
• Nonetheless, across the board, there
offset or compensate for what they must.
needs to be a recognition that if
international sport is going to continue
in anything close to its current form, In truth, these kinds of changes need to
it will be using a lot of aviation. happen in every economic and social
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