Every month we present a figurative comparison of how high the savings potential is in the cooling sector compared to another sector. Take a guess!
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The on-going Euro 2020 is the first football tournament staged across 11 countries. This, of course, comes at a significant climate cost. As distances increase – from Baku all the way to Seville – so do emissions. Teams and supporters need to travel, often by plane. Waste is generated in stadiums, and people all over the world are following the matches from their devices.
It is estimated that the last large-scale football tournament – the 2018 Russia World Cup – generated 2.2 Mt CO2-eq in total. This figure includes transport of players and fans, accommodation, the construction of sites, and energy used at the stadiums. If a world cup was hosted every year until 2050, the CO2 equivalent would amount to 63.8 Mt.
Assuming a regular world cup takes place every 4 years, the emissions sum up to 17.6 Mt CO2-eq until 2050. However, this number is negligible compared to the 270 Mt CO2-eq that could be saved through an early transition to natural refrigerants in window-type ACs (and this does not include savings through avoided F-gas banks).
Data source
The data for our "Cool Comparison" comes from the following sources:
- Football emissions: Berners-Lee, M. (2020). How Bad Are Bananas? The Carbon Footprint of Everything. London, UK: Profile Books.
- Window-type AC emissions: Calculations by GIZ GmbH / HEAT GmbH