As the Earth has been warming up in recent years, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) mentioned in 2021 that the rate of warming is even faster than expected, with the average temperature of the Earth's surface predicted to be 1.5 or 1.6 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by around 2030, and that it is expected to be 1.5 or 1.6 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The global carbon footprint must therefore be increased. As a result, global carbon emissions must be reduced by one-half by 2030 and reach zero by 2050.
As a member of the global village, the sports community naturally cannot stay out of it, and in fact, the international
the world of sport
Attention to the issue of environmental sustainability can be traced back to the 1990s. For example, the International Olympic Committee (hereinafter referred to as the IOC) established the Committee on Sport and Environment in 1995, and added the content of environmental sustainability to its charter in the following year, and emphasized the issue of sustainable development and regulated the responsibilities of the host city and the evaluation mechanism in the Olympic Movement in 1999.
In the 21st century, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (hereinafter referred to as FIFA) started to calculate the carbon footprint of the World Cup in 2006 when the World Cup was held in Germany, and then planned the overall sustainable development strategy in 2011 and 2012, and continuously revised and implemented the Green Goal to Football for the Planet, which was proposed in 2005. for the Planet) proposed in 2005. This article will analyze the environmental sustainability of FIFA and the Qatar World Cup.
(i) Carbon footprint calculation
In order to fulfill FIFA's commitment to the climate issue, the FIFA '06 Organizing Committee, the German Federal Government and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) reached an agreement in September 2005? Green Goals agreement to provide technical and promotional support to the tournament. In 2009, FIFA further introduced the requirement that bidding cities for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups must include carbon footprint tracking and carbon offsetting in their bids, by proposing indicators for four areas of the tournament: water, waste, energy and transportation.
In the same year, FIFA took the lead by releasing the first GHG emissions calculation report for an international sports association, which indicated that the carbon emissions for that year were 48,500 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent. As the carbon footprint calculation was still in the rough estimation stage, according to the official report, the total carbon emissions of the 2010 World Football Championship in South Africa were 48,400 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, but this figure did not take into account the carbon emissions generated by the fans in the process of watching the matches, such as the transportation behavior of the fans who arrived in South Africa by means of transportation. According to a report by Ernst & Young, the carbon footprint of the tournament was 2.753 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, of which transportation accounted for more than 85%.
The preparation time for the WFC is as long as several years, and usually, the inventory checking is conducted three years before the start of the tournament until the end of the tournament. In the case of the 2014 WFC in Brazil, for example, the inventory was divided into three phases, including the preparatory period, the 2013 Confederation Cup and the 2014 WFC, and the scope of the inventory included peripheral activities, such as the Soccer Hope Forum and the Intercontinental Cup Banquet. At the same time, the calculation of the inventory of activities including transportation, accommodation, venue operations and overall administrative operations, etc., it is estimated that the amount of carbon footprint emissions of 2.7 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, of which the third phase of the World Cup preparations accounted for 90%, and the transportation is the highest of all the activities (83%), including 61% and 35% of the international traffic and inter-city traffic, etc., FIFA, the Brazilian World Cup Preparatory Committee and Brazil MGM Innovation Ltd. FIFA, the Brazilian World Cup Organizing Committee and MGM Innovations Brazil Ltd. have jointly released the 2014 Brazilian World Cup Carbon Footprint Summary Report.
Russia 2018
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The carbon footprint of the WFC is estimated to be about 2.16 million tons of CO2 equivalent, 90% of the carbon emissions are during the handling phase of the WFC, and the transportation (about 1.6 million tons of CO2 equivalent) and accommodation (about 250,000 tons of CO2 equivalent) of the participating members can be said to be the bulk of the carbon emitting activities, of which the transportation projects of the international transportation and inter-city transportation accounted for 77% and 21%, respectively. 2022 WFC will have a carbon footprint of 3.6 million tons of CO2 equivalent. The carbon footprint of the 2022 WFC is 3.6 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (Mt CO2eq), which is calculated from April 2011 to June 2023. About 2.7 million tons (75%) of the carbon footprint is generated during the period of the WFC, while transportation (about 1.87 Mt CO2eq) and accommodation (about 720,000 tons of CO2eq) of the members of the WFC are the most significant carbon-emitting items. Table 1 shows the carbon emissions of the WFC in recent years.
Table 1: Summary of carbon dioxide emissions from previous World Football Championships (in tons of carbon dioxide equivalent)
particular year
carbon footprint
350,000
2.75 million
2.73 million
2.16 million
3.63 million
Source: Organized by the team
(ii) FIFA Environmental Sustainability Strategy
The carbon footprint of the iconic Soccer World Cup is just the beginning of FIFA's efforts to promote environmental sustainability, as the global governing body of the sport, FIFA is not only responsible for the development and promotion of the sport globally, but is also working to make its tournaments and member countries more sustainable.
