FIFA World Cup 2026 – Climate costs of expanded tournament under scrutiny as emissions set to soar

The World Cup kicks off on Thursday as a celebration of goals, drama and global fandom, but is also expected to come with climate costs more than double those of Qatar 2022, putting the environmental cost of football’s growing showpiece into sharp focus.

The tournament’s expanded footprint includes 48 teams and locations across North America and an assessment published last week by the global carbon accounting platform Green estimates this could generate 7.8 million tons of carbon dioxide.

That is roughly equivalent to the annual emissions of 1.7 million cars, or the annual emissions of Sierra Leone, making it the most polluting World Cup ever, according to academics and campaigners, mainly caused by the enormous distances that teams, fans and media will travel in the three-nation, 16-city format.

“I think the World Cup is great in theory for the sport and for visibility – but bad from a climate perspective,” said author and sports ecologist Madeleine Orr. Reuters.

The figures underline that concern. Researchers estimate that as much as 87 percent of the tournament’s emissions will come from travel – mainly flights – as millions of fans cross the continent to follow their teams.

The huge geographical spread of the tournament, which stretches 4,500 kilometers from Vancouver to Miami, makes it inherently more carbon-intensive than the compact event in Qatar, which has been criticized for building seven new stadiums. Qatar’s greenhouse gas emissions were calculated at approximately 3.8 million tons.

Although no new stadiums were built this time, the expansion to more teams and the spread of matches across distant host cities simply shifted the overall environmental costs, said David Gogishvili, a geographer at the University of Lausanne.

«Increase the number of teams and then place them in a country that requires a lot of travel to get there by air, and then a lot of travel between host locations. OK, we eliminate one source of negative environmental impact, but then we increase it in another,» Gogishvili said. Reuters.

The World Cup venues have been divided into three regional clusters – Western, Central and Eastern – in an effort to reduce travel distances.

England and their fans have the heaviest travel burden among the tournament favourites, with their three group matches in Dallas, Boston and New Jersey covering 2,721 miles.

At the 2021 United Nations COP26 climate summit, FIFA pledged to halve its carbon emissions by 2030 and reach net zero by 2040, as part of the UN Sports for Climate Action Framework.

FIFA has not set a specific carbon target for the World Cup. Gogishvili compared the global football body to the International Olympic Committee, which is “more or less basically following the reduction target” of halving its carbon footprint by 2050.

“At least they are on the right track,” Gogishvili said. FIFA said it welcomed the audit. “Numerous environmental initiatives related to the tournament are being implemented by FIFA and the host cities before, during and after the tournament,” the organization said in a statement. Reuters.

FIFA pointed to the use of existing stadiums, encouraging fans to use public transport, reducing reliance on diesel generators and recycling and food waste initiatives.

MODERN VIEWING HABITS CREATE A LARGE EMISSIONS FOOTPRINT

The expansion means 16 additional teams, including four debutants: Cape Verde, Curaçao, Jordan and Uzbekistan.

“That’s great (for those countries), but at what cost?” said Orr, who wrote “Warming Up: How Climate Change is Changing Sport.”

Not only is the competition growing, the way fans consume it (across multiple devices and platforms) is changing too. And that shift points to an often overlooked part of the tournament’s carbon footprint: the digital ecosystem that underpins modern sport.

“The part of the carbon footprint that is never discussed, but is huge, huge, huge, is the digital footprint,” Orr said.

Broadcasting, streaming, data feeds and betting platforms all require huge energy inputs, from data centers to satellites to the billions of devices fans use to watch matches, the Canadian explained.

The cumulative effect is enormous, especially in an age of multi-screen viewing.

The United Kingdom’s National Energy System Operator estimated that each of the group matches in Scotland and England could use 600 megawatts more electricity nationally, the equivalent of the total electricity demand for Glasgow and Leeds combined.

“You have to remember that everyone watching around the world is part of this,” Orr said. “And the vast majority of them are watching on two screens, they’re watching on their TV and then following along on their phone.”

Unlike flights or stadium construction, these emissions are rarely included in official sustainability calculations.

“When we think about the impact of these events, we really have to think about the entire scope,” Orr said.

FIFA said it is committed to integrating sustainability into the World Cup “guided by a comprehensive sustainability and human rights strategy that focuses on tackling emissions, improving resource efficiency and creating a positive legacy among host communities”. Gogishvili pointed to what he sees as a lack of urgency within the governing body.

“By the way, I love football,” said the Georgian and lifelong Manchester United fan.

“(But) FIFA clearly does not prioritize reducing the negative impact on the environment… there needs to be pressure on it by the media, by players and association countries, by researchers, by the governments, by the public.”

Published on June 9, 2026