EMERGENCY on Earth
Climate Code RED
August 2021 the world's leading scientists released a climate report said to be a "CODE RED for humanity."
Sport is increasingly affected by climate change. The health of athletes suffer due to the effects of heat stroke, air pollution and pandemics. Events are being postponed, relocated or cancelled due to extreme weather events. Sporting infrastructure is being damaged or destroyed by storms, floods and fires.
We witnessed a summer Olympics plagued by a global pandemic and a winter Olympics, with virtually no real snow!
There is no sport on a dead planet.
The current model for sport isn't working. Sport is not an innocent bystander, it is a significant contributor to the climate crisis. Carbon footprinting expert Mike Berners-Lee has claimed that “the Qatar 2022 World Cup is the highest carbon event of any kind, apart from a war, that humans have ever staged.”
Olympianism emphasises joy, effort and equal access to sport. Let us reconnect with the original grassroots benefits of sport for all and stop contributing to the destruction of our planet.
Pause pollution, await solutions and focus on Sport LOCAL For Life.
We are running out of time! ACT NOW.
Website link for this carbon clock.
Click on the top right box that says 1.5 degrees to see how little time we have left!
"Any further delay in concerted global action will miss a brief and rapidly closing window to secure a liveable future." IPCC Working Group 2 co-chair Hans-Otto Portner (June 2022)
“We are on a highway to hell with our foot on the accelerator.” and "empty pledges put us firmly on track to an unliveable world" – UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres in 2022. Please listen
NASA Scientist, Peter Kalmus says, "Fossil-fueled global heating is already crazy bad and it will only intensify from here. The sooner we stop it, the more we will save, it's that simple. Sport can lead the way toward shifting society into climate emergency mode."
"The next 3-4 years, I believe, will determine the future of humanity."
- Sir David King, former Chief Scientific Advisor to the British Government said in 2021.
Hard Facts:
Our planet is in a state of climate and nature EMERGENCY!
The planet is at 1.2 degrees of global over-heating (above pre-industrial levels) and this small temperature rise has our weather systems spinning out of control, destroying livelihoods and killing people across the world today.
At current rates of emissions, the carbon budget to limit global overheating to 1.5 degrees will be spent in less than 7 years. (Source)
1.5 degrees is the universally agreed global average temperature increase beyond which tipping points are likely to be breached causing catastrophic and irreversible climate change. It is not a goal, or a political target, it is a physical LIMIT.
Current global emission reduction targets put the planet on track to hit 2.4 - 2.6 degrees of overheating by 2100, and almost all countries are not even on track to meet these inadequate targets. (Source)
By 2070 if we continue emitting as we are, 3 BILLION people could be living in uninhabitable zones because of climate impacts. (Source)
62% of the carbon dioxide which has been put into the atmosphere in the industrial era has been emitted since 1990, which is when the world 'woke up' to tackle this issue. Today, CO2 emissions are still INCREASING! In other words, the political processes designed to address this challenge have been an abject failure.
Global leaders are failing to implement policies and measures to rapidly reduce emissions and to protect and restore nature.
The leadership of the global climate negotiations, COP28, has been handed to the CEO of the world's largest oil company! Fossil fuel companies have humanity in a headlock.
Mainstream media is failing to communicate the urgency of the threats that we face or the solutions we need to embrace.
Who is going to save humanity and the million other species at risk of extinction because of our destructive behaviour and current collective failure to act?
Sport could lead humanity through the transition to a sustainable future in balance with nature. In an exciting, appealing and rewarding way.
Acting appropriately to the scale of the threat that the climate and nature crisis presents will help lower eco-anxiety which is affecting youths across the globe with 75% frightened about the future.
Emergency mode is required NOW!
Sport LOCAL For Life
Climate Emergency:
- Heat waves
- Floods
- Cyclones
- Super storms
- Snow storms
Causing:
- Drought
- Fires
- Mudslides
- Melting snow and ice
- Fresh / water scarcity
- Crop failure – food shortages and famine
- Destruction of buildings, businesses, homes and sports infrastructure
- Societal unrest, mass migration, collapse, conflict.
Sport LOCAL For Life
Nature Emergency:
One million species of plants and animals are at threat of extinction because of humans.
Since 1970, there has been an average 68% decline in species population sizes. This indicates a fundamentally broken relationship between humans and the natural world.
Transformative change is required from all sectors of society to restore and protect nature.
How bad is it?
If we don't rapidly decarbonise..
‘Up to 70% (400 of 666) of Alpine ski resorts will no longer have natural snow covering by the end of this century.’ (Source)
No sport on a
dead planet.
We have a choice...
Change is inevitable, we either change decisively or destructively.
By choice or by force of nature.