Air Date: Week of May 29, 2026

France (blue, white, and red) play Australia (yellow, green, and white) in Group D of the 2022 FIFA World Cup. In 2022, the Cup was held in five host cities in Qatar. This year, it’s being played in 16 cities throughout North America. Scientists with Scientists for Global Responsibility are worried about how heat and humidity could jeopardize player safety. (Photo: Tasnim News Agency, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0)

The 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup will mostly take place during the North American summer, and the prospect of extreme heat prompted a group of current and former players to write an open letter to FIFA calling for better protection of players. Stuart Parkinson, a co-author of the 2025 report “FIFA’s Climate Blind Spot: The Men’s World Cup in a Warming World”, talks with Host Steve Curwood about the risks for players and fans as well as the climate costs of the 2026 games.

Transcript

DOERING: It’s Living on Earth, I’m Jenni Doering

CURWOOD: And I’m Steve Curwood.

[kick sound]

“Into the galaxy of greats! “

CURWOOD: The 2022 FIFA World Cup championship game that December saw the crowd go wild as Argentina scored against France –

“Angel Di Maria - Glorious goal! Argentine goal! “

CURWOOD: Not enough to avoid a tie, but the win finally came in a penalty shoot out.

[kick – cheers – ]

“Argentina – champions of the world!”

[cheers]

CURWOOD: And now, four years later the World Cup kicks off again, not starting in winter in Qatar but near the long days of summer in June in Mexico City.

DOERING: The Qatari games were moved to avoid the searing heat of the Persian Gulf summer, but even so, some of the early rounds were played at temperatures above 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Four years later this World Cup is not likely to be any cooler and there is a chance it will be even hotter. Since 2022 global warming has kept pushing temperatures up, rising from an average 1.2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels to 1.4 degrees higher today. And on the way, in 2024 we recorded the hottest year in human history.

CURWOOD: Some billion and a half people are expected to watch the final match on TV and have the option of air conditioning, but the players as well as most soccer fans attending the 104 games to be played in Mexico, the US and Canada, will not. The prospect of extreme heat prompted a group of current and former players to write an open letter to FIFA calling for better protection of players. And they say Aramco’s sponsorship promotes the oil and gas giant, sending the wrong message during the climate emergency. Stuart Parkinson is a co-author of the 2025 report “FIFA’s Climate Blind Spot: The Men’s World Cup in a warming world”. We called him at his home in Lancaster, England. Dr. Parkinson, welcome to Living On Earth!

PARKINSON: Thank you.

CURWOOD: So, Stuart, you're among a group of scientists who recently co-signed an open letter to FIFA warning that its current heat safety measures for the men's 2026 World Cup are inadequate and could put players at risk of serious harm. What is the concern here? What are the conditions that you think could result in harm for them?

PARKINSON: The particular problem that the letter pointed to was heat stress. The temperature levels that look likely to be occurring at some of the matches, particularly in the southern United States and Mexico, looked like they could exceed what is considered by the players association, the football players association, safe limits. And they define these as 28 degrees in using a scale called the Wet Bulb Globe Temperature. And that's temperature but takes account of humidity and other factors that put stress on the body, and FIFA has decided that they think that players and indeed fans can cope with higher temperatures up to 32 degrees. And we're arguing that you should be paying attention to what the player's body is saying, and if temperature is likely to be above the 28-degree Wet Bulb Globe Temperature level, then you need to be delaying the match, or indeed postponing the match.

CURWOOD: When you say you said a 30-degree limit, they're talking about a 32- degree limit.

PARKINSON: 32

CURWOOD: Yeah. So, of course, here in the United States, we are backwards, and we use the Fahrenheit scale, so we're talking about something around 85 or 87 degrees. Then, at 32 degrees Celsius.

PARKINSON: Yeah.

CURWOOD: That's kind of toasty. I mean, I'm not sure I would want to walk my dog rapidly in that temperature.

PARKINSON: This is a Wet Bulb Temperature, so you have to bear in mind that the adjustments for humidity mean that if the humidity is low and the apparent temperature is lower, but if the humidity is high, then it makes it much more dangerous.

CURWOOD: Well, and where the matches are, most of the places are going to be looking at higher humidity in the summertime, as opposed to being very dry places. So, what are you suggesting to FIFA that they do about this? What's the answer?

PARKINSON: All that can be done at the moment is to delay the match or postpone the match if these conditions look likely to be occurring. They should be adding cooling breaks. They promised to add cooling breaks, but these are not really long enough or frequent enough to be sufficient to deal with the higher temperatures, and rescheduling them well. They could have scheduled them better. Some timings have been changed, but they need to change more of them, really. And, of course, there are other weather risks, you know, the hurricane season is starting in the Southeast of the U.S. and around Mexico, the wildfire season in the Southwest, the tornado season in the middle. It's not a good situation. It's not a good time of the year, but to be playing these sorts of matches.

CURWOOD: So, of course, there are other climate aspects to this World Cup. I believe that you and your colleagues have estimated something on the scale of eight, nine, 10 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, just to move people around. Give me a concrete example of how much carbon we're talking about here?

PARKINSON: So, we estimated that this World Cup would produce emissions of about 9 million tons of carbon dioxide, that's equivalent to about six and a half million British cars being driven for a year. So it is a substantial amount of emissions. The vast majority of those emissions are due to aviation, so people flying to North America to watch the tournament and flying around within North America between matches, and it's particularly high this time because the tournament is larger. It used to be 64 matches, it's now 104 matches at this tournament, and of course, it's spread across a whole continent, the whole of North America, whereas before it's been in a single country or maybe two countries that are close together.

CURWOOD: Stuart, somebody listening to us right now may say, "Oh, I want to see this tournament. What can a football fan do to reduce the carbon footprint during this upcoming tournament?

PARKINSON: Yeah, I mean, the basic issue is I encourage people to watch it from home or watch it with their friends at a local bar or pub, that's what most people do. If you are traveling to the tournament, then if you can at least do things like share a car or go and see the tournament in one of the cooler parts of the country, will reduce your risk. Depends whether that's an option for you, it is a difficult situation. The USA has very poor surface public transport, so the alternatives to flying are quite minimal. It would be better to go and see a match closer to where you live, rather than crossing the country. That may restrict your choice of which match to see, but that's another thing to consider.

CURWOOD: Stuart Parkinson is executive director of scientists for Global Responsibility Stuart, thanks so much for speaking with us today.

PARKINSON: Thank you very much.

 

Links

Learn more about the potential risks for players during this year’s World Cup

Read the official letter to FIFA from the Scientists for Global Responsibility