FIFA World Cup to go Carbon Neutral
by Jacob Gordon, Nashville, TN 
on 09.13.05
The 2006 FIFA Soccer World Cup finals to be held in Berlin will be making environmental history this coming year as it strives toward its proclaimed goal of ‘climate neutrality.’ Seeing as the World Cup finals are the most popular sporting event in the world, more so than even the Olympics, this will be the largest climate neutral sports event ever. The World Cup Organizing Committee has signed a partnership agreement with the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) and Germany’s environmental minister to assess the games’ environmental impact and develop the Green Goal initiative for offsetting the estimated 100,000 metric tons of greenhouse gasses expected to be emitted by the event’s activity.
But maybe the most interesting part of this is the way in which the emissions are being offset. Typically, climate neutrality is achieved through the planting of trees (the G8 Summit and Coldplay’s Little Big Man album were both rendered c-neutral through tree planting), but the World Cup has devised a system that will initiate clean energy programs in a region of India hit hard by the recent Tsunami. Special “Family Clean Energy Packages,” devised specially for the Green Goal initiative, will set up rural villagers with biogas digesters that will generate cooking gas from cow manure. This is intended to replace the use of kerosene and wood as the primary fuels, methods that contribute to climate change, deforestation, and respiratory disease. In a press release, the Organizing Committee described their goal as to “provide eco-friendly, safe and guaranteed energy supplies… thus simultaneously protecting the local and global climate, and improving the villagers' quality of life.”
To top this off, the group to carry out the clean energy program is the Indian organization Women for Sustainable Development. The brilliance of this program it its aim of effectively addressing inseparable ecological and social issues. Maybe this approach can provide some inspiration for our own disaster region redevelopment down South: rebuilding in a way that acknowledges the link between human activity, climate events, and social stratification. :: World Cup
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You know, if the men in developed nations cared as much about social/environmental issues as they do about sports, there would be no need for a green movement.
It's not just Berlin where the World Cup is being held--here's the full list of cities that will be hosting games: http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com/06/en/d/city/index.html. That said, Berlin will be hosting the big finale. (Sorry for being such a trainspotter.)
Those Germans are so so far ahead, so evolved, it's mind blowing from the Texas perspective. I'm still working on getting a grocery bag.
I think this is a pretty amazing idea. I am an avid soccer fan and also believe in environmental protection. When resources like technology are growing exponentially, it's easy to disregard their effects on the world surrounding us. I believe that awareness should be spreading at an almost equal rate of growth since our natural resources are being depleted.
I am aware that this type of reform may seem like a far-fetched aspiration sometimes in todays society. The World Cup is an enormous event that obviously attracts spectators worldwide. I think that even if only a small percentage of people respond to this clean energy program, many more will at least be informed of it, making a difference in itself. Hopefully this is an idea beginning something substancially successful. Congratulations to the UNEP on their creativity and brilliance.
2006 world cup soccer is going to be the greatest
FIFA's Carbon neutral goal has inspired our school, which is hosting a National Soccer Tournament this weekend, to work towards a carbon neutral goal too! We are doing this with the help of the Tree Canada Foundation.
In turn, we hope this will inspire participating students to take other actions to address the global challenge of climate change.
- Stephanie at Upper Canada College
"A small step for man, a big step for humanity".