A new study has revealed that climate change will threaten global sports events over the next three decades. The report was published by the Rapid Transition Alliance. This group monitors climate change, development and global issues. Researchers said that nearly all sports would be impacted by what they called "an accelerating climate crisis". They highlighted how the weather has already disrupted major sports events. Bushfires in Australia made playing conditions hazardous at the Australian Tennis Open and torrential rain from a huge typhoon disrupted last year's Rugby World Cup in Japan. The report predicts that fires, floods, heatwaves and rising sea levels will cause greater disruption.
Rapid Transition Alliance coordinator Andrew Simms urged the sports industry to do more to become carbon-neutral. He said: "Sport provides some of society's most influential role models. If sport can change how it operates to act at the speed and scale necessary to halt the climate emergency, others will follow." He added that the carbon emissions from sports events worldwide are equal to those produced by a medium-sized country. The report's author, David Goldblatt, said sport should be more proactive. He said: "Making a carbon-zero world the common-sense priority of the sports world would make a huge contribution to making it the common-sense priority of all politics."
