As the new host of the 2034 Men’s Football World CupSaudi Arabia says it will build or renovate 15 stadiums, create a futuristic city and expand airports in a massive construction project to accommodate millions of athletes, coaches and spectators.

This will emit tons of planet-warming greenhouse gases as concrete and steel are made and transported, excavators and diesel trucks move materials, and new buildings are powered and cooled. When all the emissions associated with the world’s buildings are grouped together, they are biggest contributor to climate change.

Building so many new sites is “extreme environmental waste” because a large amount of carbon will be emitted and scarce resources will be used, said Andrew Zimbalist, an economics professor at Smith College in Massachusetts who has written several books on economics of mega sporting events. Zimbalist said the World Cup should be held in countries with a developed football culture and industry.

Seth Warren Rose, founding director of the research organization Eneref Institute, said the world will be even hotter in a decade and cannot afford further warming.

“I’m sorry, but we live on another planet. We have to prepare for it,” Rose said. “By 2034 we will live in a different climate and that is not a metaphor.”

Rose said his message to organizers is: make a real effort to reduce emissions or don’t organize at all.

Saudi Arabia’s plans will rely largely on concrete, which is responsible for around 8% of global emissions who warm the planet, with iron and steel representing an additional 7%. Human rights groups worry that awarding 2034 World Cup to Saudi Arabia will endanger migrant workers.

In a application book detailing his plans For the development of five cities ahead of the World Cup, Saudi Arabia said three new stadiums are currently under construction and eight more are planned, to host the first ever 48-team matches in 2034. Buildings built for international sporting events often end up becoming “white elephant” venues that remain unused after the matches are over. The Saudi Football Federation did not respond to our request for comment.

Saudi Arabia has proposed 134 accommodations for teams and referees, new hotels, several fan festival sites, transport expansions including a high-speed train and new investment in its futuristic city of Neom. Much of what the country has included in its bid package relates to its Vision 2030 strategic plan, which the government calls a plan to diversify its economy and unlock new business opportunities.

The bid includes sustainability initiatives, said Karim Elgendy, a researcher at the Chatham House think tank in London. These include operating stadiums with clean electricity such as solar power, using energy-saving natural ventilation and shading, and imposing green building standards.

But Elgendy said the scale of Saudi Arabia’s apparent plans for the event, as well as the distances between host cities, suggest it could become the most carbon-intensive World Cup in history. Elgendy said how they mitigate this endeavor will determine the environmental impact and without measures the event could have a carbon footprint almost twice the record set in 2022.

By contrast, organizers of this summer’s Paris Olympics said this week that they had met their goal of cutting the games’ carbon footprint in half compared to 2012 and 2016. They did so by using energy renewables, recycled materials and plant-based food options that are lower in carbon. -intensive than meat and even supplying the famous Olympic cauldron with electricity and lighting rather than burning gas.

To critics who suggest that FIFA should have chosen a different host country, such as the United Kingdom which has dozens of stadiums, Walker Ross, researcher in sports ecology and sustainability at the University of Edinburgh, points out that the Saudi candidacy was the only one in a series. accelerated process.

The next World Cup, in 2026, will take place in 16 cities in North America. Ross said it could also have a significant carbon footprint, given that teams and fans travel across an entire continent. The same could be said for the 2030 World Cup which will take place in six countries. If anyone is at fault, it’s FIFA, he said, because that’s their application process.

“People are throwing their hands in the air and acting like certain countries should or shouldn’t host these events,” he said. “But if this sport is truly meant for the world, then we need to be open to everyone who hosts it.”

Qatar invested $200 billion construction frenzyby building seven stadiums, a new metro system, highways, high-rise buildings and a new city ahead of the 2022 event. Organizers and FIFA predicted this would produce some 3.6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide during the decade spent preparing for the tournament, representing around 3% of Qatar’s total emissions in 2019, according to World Bank data. Experts say the Qatar event recorded the highest carbon emissions to date.

Skeptics and outside experts said Qatar’s accounting organized a “carbon neutral” World Cup did not include the full carbon footprint of the event.

FIFA accepted Saudi Arabia’s sustainability and climate pledges an assessment published in Novembernoting that “while the scale of the construction works would have a significant environmental impact, the bid provides a good basis for implementing mitigation measures to address some of the environmental challenges.”

FIFA directed The Associated Press to the assessment Thursday when asked for additional comment.

Saudi Arabia’s emissions have increased; he emitted 533 tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2022or 1.6% of global emissions, according to the International Energy Agency, and its production of fossil fuels is exploding. Renewable energies remain almost non-existent. The country aims to supply itself with at least half of its electricity comes from renewable energies by 2030.

“It appears that FIFA has learned very little from the Qatar World Cup debacle,” said Khaled Diab, a spokesperson for Carbon Market Watch.

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