 "Brazil footballer and former coach Dunga with the FIFA World Cup trophy. Image: Reuters")
The FIFA World Cup 2026, which will be co-hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico, will be “the most climate-damaging” in the history of the tournament, a new study has claimed. As per the Scientists for Global Responsibility (SGR), the 48-team expanded World Cup will generate more than nine million tonnes of carbon dioxide.
“Driven by a high reliance on air travel and a significant increase in the quantity of matches,” said the report, which added that the carbon emissions during the FIFA World Cup 2026 will be equivalent to “nearly 6.5 million average British cars driven for an entire year.”
FIFA World Cup 2026 to emit 9 million tonnes of CO2e
The SGR’s report was created in collaboration with the Environmental Defence Fund and the Sport for Climate Action Network. The report says that the total carbon emission during the FIFA World Cup 2026 will be almost double the average for the last four World Cup finals. It would also be significantly more than the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, which resulted in an emission of 5.25 million tonnes of CO2e.
FIFA has not yet reacted to the report, but it has a history of making tall claims and falling flat on them.
It had in past announced that the Qatar World Cup would be the first “fully carbon-neutral World Cup,” but those claims have since been challenged by a Swiss advertising regulator, which labelled them as “unsubstantiated claims.”
Earlier, the US, Canada and Mexico, the hosts for the 2026 World Cup, had estimated an emission of 3.6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide during the original bid. However, that estimate was only for a 32-team tournament.
The next year’s World Cup, however, has been expanded by 16 more teams. It will have 104 matches, 40 more than the Qatar World Cup.
It should be noted that FIFA has claimed that it would reduce its emissions by 50 per cent by 2030 and achieve net-zero emissions by 2040.