2026 World Flop, er, Cup Likely To Set New Mark For Greenwashing Along W. GHG Output

Soccer fans are increasingly watching preparations for the 2026 World Cup through their fingers. The most popular sporting event on the planet is awash in controversy, whether it’s the eye-watering ticket prices, the question of Iran’s participation while the president of one of the host countries threatens war crimes against it, or the role that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement may or may not play in policing the event. And yet, lost in the political pyrotechnics is a fiasco that carries as much long-term peril as any: the tournament’s staggering contribution to runaway climate change.

The 2026 World Cup is not only the most politically combustible tournament in modern history, but it is also on track to be the “most polluting” World Cup ever, with total greenhouse gas emissions hitting nearly two times the historical average. Scientists conservatively project that the tournament will generate around 9m tons of carbon dioxide equivalent. Air travel comprises approximately 7.7m tons of this carbon budget, and more than four times that of the average for tournaments held between 2010 and 2022. The researchers note that the worst-case upper estimate for air transport is about 13.7m tons of CO2. That may sound bad, but that’s just because World Cup emissions have never been worse.

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In reality, the Qatar 2022 World Cup was a carbon bomb in sporty form. It necessitated more than 1,000 daily inbound and outbound flights, used an energy-intensive desalination system to purify water and relied on largely bogus carbon-offset schemes. Even the grass seeds for the manicured football pitches were flown in from North America on climate-controlled airplanes. Somehow, the 2026 World Cup is even worse. Given that increased greenhouse gas emissions cause premature deaths, scholar Tim Walters argues that this World Cup is the deadliest sporting event in history, a sign of Fifa’s “abject misanthropy”.

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Lacquer on top of all that a World Cup sponsorship that looks like it was concocted in a greenwashing laboratory. In 2024, Fifa signed a four-year partnership deal with Aramco, the state-owned Saudi energy behemoth that is the largest corporate greenhouse gas emitter on earth, responsible for more than 4% of all emissions since 1965. More than 100 professional female footballers, including some of the biggest names in the game, signed a letter condemning the partnership, citing the environmental impacts as a serious problem. As Canada national team captain Jessie Fleming put it: “Aramco is one of the biggest polluters of the planet we all call home. In taking Aramco’s sponsorship, Fifa is choosing money over women’s safety and the safety of the planet.”

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https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/may/17/world-cup-climate-change