The World Cup kicks off on Thursday, promising goals, drama and global excitement, but it also comes with a climate impact projected to be more than twice that of Qatar 2022, casting a stark light on the environmental cost of football’s growing spectacle.
With the tournament expanded to 48 teams and matches spread across North America, global carbon accounting platform Greenly estimated last week that the event could produce 7.8 million metric tons of carbon dioxide.
That’s comparable to the annual emissions of 1.7 million cars or the total yearly output of Sierra Leone, making this the most polluting World Cup to date, according to academics and campaigners. The main driver: the enormous distances teams, fans and media will travel across 16 host cities in three countries.
“In theory, the World Cup is great for the sport and for global exposure, but it’s bad for the climate,” author and sports ecologist Madeleine Orr said.
The data reinforces those concerns. Researchers estimate that up to 87 per cent of the tournament’s emissions will come from travel, especially flights, as millions of fans traverse the continent to follow their teams.
The sprawling layout of the event, stretching 2,800 miles from Vancouver to Miami, makes it far more carbon‑intensive than the compact Qatar World Cup, which drew criticism for constructing seven new stadiums. Qatar’s greenhouse gas emissions were estimated at around 3.8 million tons.
Although no new venues were built this time, increasing the number of teams and distributing matches across widely separated cities simply shifted the environmental burden, said David Gogishvili, a geographer at the University of Lausanne.
“If you add more teams and place them in a country that requires significant air travel to reach, and then more travel between host cities, you eliminate one environmental issue but amplify another,” Gogishvili told Reuters.
The tournament’s venues have been grouped into Western, Central and Eastern clusters in an attempt to curb travel distances.
Among the top contenders, England and their supporters face the most travel, with group-stage games in Dallas, Boston and New Jersey, a combined 1,721 miles apart.
At the 2021 COP26 climate summit, FIFA committed to cutting its carbon emissions in half by 2030 and achieving net‑zero emissions by 2040 as part of the UN Sports for Climate Action Framework.
However, FIFA has not set a specific carbon target for this World Cup.
Gogishvili contrasted football’s governing body with the International Olympic Committee, which he said is “more or less actually following the reduction target” to halve emissions by 2050.
“At least they’re heading in the right direction,” he added.
FIFA said it welcomes scrutiny.
“Numerous environmental initiatives related to the tournament are being implemented by FIFA and the Host Cities before, during and after the event,” the organisation said in a statement.
FIFA highlighted its use of existing stadiums, efforts to promote public transport for fans, measures to reduce the use of diesel generators, and programmes focused on recycling and food waste.
