8 hours ago
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Next year’s Fifa World Cup in the United States, Canada and Mexico is set to be “the most climate-damaging” in the tournament’s history, according to new research by environmentalists.
Scientists for Global Responsibility, SGR, have calculated the greenhouse gas emissions attributable to the tournament, which has been expanded from 32 to 48 teams.
The campaign group claims the expanded 2026 World Cup will generate more than 9 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent. This, it says, is driven by a high reliance on air travel and significant increase in the quantity of matches.
SGR says that’s almost double the average for the last four World Cup finals, and significantly more than Qatar 2022, which is estimated to have had a footprint of up to 5.25 million tonnes of CO2e.
It says the predicted 2026 total is equivalent to nearly 6.5 million British cars being driven for an entire year.
Next year’s World Cup will be the first to be held across an entire continent.
It will have 40 more matches than before, all of which will be played at existing stadia.
English (US) ·