Elite British runner, Innes FitzGerald, has made headlines this week for saying she will not be flying around the world to compete in athletics events due to the carbon footprint it leaves. In a letter sent to UK Athletics, she argues that the environmental cost of these events is a cause of great concern and:
I would never be comfortable flying in the knowledge that people could be losing their livelihoods, homes and loved ones as a result. The least I can do is voice my solidarity with those suffering on the front line of climate breakdown. Coming to a decision has not been easy, however little compares to the grief I would feel taking the flight.
Letter to UKA – January 2023
©Uffculme Academy
Sport at its heart is gratuitous. Its goals are wholly trivial (e.g. getting a ball into the back of a net; running to cross a line as quickly as possible) and therefore the idea that we would waste precious resource on such activities is absurd. The irony is that in modern society, sport and elite sporting competition now seems to mean more than ever despite its triviality. It is a multi-billion dollar industry that many of us buy into when we watch performers on a world stage, whether at an Olympics or the football world cup. Merely watching these events on a television screen in the comfort of our own home undoubtedly has a greater carbon footprint than if we went to our local club to watch a game.
Despite claims by major sports organising committees about how green and carbon neutral their competitions are, this was illustrated for what it’s worth on the BBC Radio 4 World at One programme today, which interviewed one of the organisers of the 2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games – a competition that has widely advertised its carbon credentials. When pressed to provide more detail about how carbon neutrality is achieved, the organiser admitted that it involved buying up land in the West Midlands and planting thousands of trees which would then take 35 years to reach a point where the environmental cost of hosting the games would be repaid. This demonstrates how perverse and illusory the whole charade of carbon neutrality often is. The same criticisms have been levelled at the claims of the recent 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar being carbon neutral when part of it involved building seven new air-conditioned stadiums! (For a good analysis of this, listen to the BBC World Service podcast, The Climate Question)
FitzGerald’s stand should make us all think about the future of elite sport and how it is compatible with the fight against climate change. In my sporting career, I was lucky enough to play at the elite level where I got on a plane to travel to another country just to play a game of rugby or a two day tournament. I’d like to think that if I were in the same situation today, I’d think differently about doing so.
So what does this mean for elite sport? It’s clearly unsustainable despite what competition organisers might say about carbon neutrality and offsetting. I love sport but good sport doesn’t have to involve athletes and the sporting entourage to travel around the world for our entertainment, or even to determine who is the best just to satisfy egos or our relish in seeing some amazing athletes compete face-to-face against each other. Good sport can take place on a much more local scale and this is what we should be promoting.
Ultimately, as the climate crisis becomes ever clearer, I doubt FitzGerald will be the last athlete to take a stand and I’m sure others will follow. We all should acknowledge how gratuitous elite sport can be.
Philosophical thought... 