And if the “always more” big ones events sports was simply no longer sustainable in the face of the challenge of climate change, nor “morally acceptable” ? For paleoclimatologist and co-president of the IPCC (UN climate expert group) Valérie Masson-Delmotte, sport must “rise in power and competence” on best practices in order to take into account the “deep changes” caused by global warming. She was speaking as part of the Demain le sport festival, Thursday, September 22 at the Maison de la radio et de la musique.
franceinfo: For more than twenty years, each edition of the Olympic Games promises to be the “cleanest” in history. Can “clean” games exist?
Valerie Masson-Delmotte: I’m not here to make a value judgment but to share the state of play vis-à-vis climate change, which affects sport. Many events have been canceled this summer with the extreme heat. And so the question, for sport as for everything, is either undergone transformations, that is to say intense events which intensify in a warming climate – and we are not ready – or chosen transformations, that is to say a sports practice that anticipates the calendars, the infrastructures, to allow to be resilient in a warming climate. The question is also the responsibility of the sports sector for greenhouse gas emissions, especially for major events, but also for daily practice. And the role of sport, like all sectors, in building a significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. We see that practices are beginning to evolve. This is the beginning, there is a need to better mobilize. Finally, many sports enthusiasts all over the world, not only athletes, but also daily practitioners, those who love sport, supporters, feel concerned, share important values about sport. Respect is also respect for the environment. Performance also means being able to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. There is a form of collective emulation. And there, there is a need to raise the requirement on best practices. Measuring the greenhouse gas emissions of a major event involves several million tonnes of CO2: infrastructure, accommodation, travel, equipment… There is a very special power of action for sport, because it is something that connects us. It is also a cultural fact, a media power, an economic power, a whole industry.
“The challenge is to trigger really profound transformations in these sectors. Not just something that looks pretty to clear your conscience, but a fundamental reflection.”
Valerie Masson-Delmotteclimatologist, co-chair of group 1 of the IPCC
In 2050, what are sports practices in a world that will perhaps be at 1.5 degrees, 2 degrees or even more, if we are able to reduce greenhouse gas emissions? What will be the conditions for sports practices? And not only here, but everywhere in the world, and especially in tropical regions where the conditions will be hotter, more humid and very difficult for outdoor physical activity over a long period of the year?
The alternation of Summer Games and Winter Games, what will remain of it by 2050?
We could say “Games of the heat wave” and then “Games of the lack of snow”! Personally, I really wonder how this type of major event can first of all give everyone who takes part in it an understanding, so that everyone can take ownership of the issues in relation to greenhouse gas emissions tight. And then that it can show transformations, that is to say avoiding new equipment in favor of reused and readapted equipment, which has another life afterwards, which is not abandoned. And then there’s what the sport glorifies. Does it glorify practices that are very intensive in greenhouse gas emissions: travel, motorsport or other… Or does it, on the contrary, participate and show a transformation in all sectors? A transformation where sport plays its part, but also trains others to play their part.
How do climatologists approach this subject?
We see more and more scientific publications on sport and climate change. It started in 2003, there are some that have been gaining momentum since 2015, more in rich countries, more in terms of extreme heat and sport. We see that there is not yet a rigorous framework for comparing even the carbon footprint of major events. This is not yet standard practice. Nor is there a standard practice for carrying out climate stress tests on calendar planning, sporting events and infrastructure. And so there is, I think, a real need for the sport to increase in power, to increase in competence on these aspects.
The next major sporting event is in Qatar, the FIFA World Cup. Are you worried about its ecological impact?
There are things that were standard: always more, always more stadiums, sometimes abandoned, always more energy consumption, always more travel… And in fact, what was standard was unsustainable. I think now it’s questionable. It is perceived as not being morally acceptable. And so it makes all those involved in sport uncomfortable about society’s expectation of a much faster and much deeper transformation. And the question is: what does sport glorify? What does he dream of? Is it to the detriment of human rights? Is it even sometimes to the detriment of the health of athletes or spectators? Or, on the contrary, is sport changing and promoting a more agile, lighter, cleaner way of doing things? And isn’t that also an opportunity to train more people? Not just about celebrating high-level sport, but also about practicing sport on a daily basis. When we look at the action levers to massively reduce greenhouse gas emissions, we can also see them as public health policies: improving air quality; more active mobility on a daily basis, with secure infrastructure, for training and sports on foot or by bike or in shared vehicles; healthy food, which allows you to have good performance, to live a long healthy life, with less animal protein, more vegetable protein. In fact, quite a few aspects linked to the practice of sport on a daily basis – nutrition, active mobility – are levers of action for the climate and which can be adopted on a very large scale, but which are not necessarily valued by the top sports actors
In this daily sports practice, what are the consequences of global warming in the years to come?
Last summer, for example, we had 71 days in Toulouse at over 30 degrees. So, for people who are a little fragile, that means not going out during the hottest hours of the day. For athletes, that meant real brakes on outdoor training, especially endurance sports, running or cycling. So we’re already there, actually. There are also all the issues, for example, on the reliability of the engagement in the mountains, the whole winter sports industry which is directly concerned. But I think that more broadly, beyond these direct impacts, there is often an awareness of many people who seek to be able to reconcile their daily practice with a sport that is much more involved in transformations, which is lighter on its environmental footprint. We have seen multiple and varied reactions, expressions of each other to sporting events with a high carbon impact. In fact, we see that the conversation is starting and I think this conversation is important. Not the polemics, but the substantive conversation on how we project ourselves into the future, what we transform, how we do it so that it’s fair, that the sharing is fair. Sport has an exemplary vocation. It’s part of the values of sport.
We see that this “conversation” that you mention, this dialogue is difficult.
Is there a space for all those involved in sport and those who observe sport to be able together to evaluate the practices, the heavy trends of the last twenty years, their unsustainable side on the water, on soils, and not simply the issues of greenhouse gas emissions? A space to jointly define strategies, scenarios where all the actors project themselves into what responsible sport is, build it and then implement it? This space, to my knowledge, does not exist.