Can sport survive a scorched earth?

SPORTS | ISSUE THREE | WHENUA Written by Luke Fisher (he/him) | @lukefish7__ | CONTRIBUTING COLUMNIST

My first encounter with the concept of climate change was seeing the bumper stickers on my primary school bible studies teacher’s van.

Climate change is just a load of hot air.

It’s always been hot.

Aged seven, I didn’t have a clue what these meant. I honestly thought the first one was nothing more than a scientific fact. But fast forward 14 years (good god), and the phrases ‘climate change’, ‘global warming’, and ‘greenhouse gases’ have marauded their way to the forefront of my brain.

In 2023, Cyclone Gabrielle, with the help of hundreds of tonnes of forestry slash, tore its way through my home region of Tairāwhiti. Since then, it seems like every six months, another catastrophic weather event has ravaged communities that barely got a chance to recover from the last one. When you open up Instagram in the morning and get greeted by The Spinoff’s Now You Know star Robbie Nichol standing next to a slide that simply reads, ‘Is the NZ summer gone for good?’ (his answer was yes), it's difficult to avoid worrying.

Almost all sports are being, and will be, affected by climate change – not just the never-ending bat and ball sport I like to harp on about. Although given that all it takes for a game to be called off is a sprinkling of rain on a field with poor drainage, I’d say cricket is one of the most in danger.

The Heat is On

A couple of years ago, Sport New Zealand published a report aiming to lay out what a climate-changed future of sport might look like, and how little old Aotearoa might mitigate and adapt to it. Authored by a futurist, it charted four 2040 scenarios on a spectrum from best case to worst.

Scenario 1, the best case, relies on societies across the globe taking radical steps to achieve net-zero emissions. These steps begin to work, and it looks like we’re going to meet the Paris Agreement target of keeping global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Sport and recreation in this scenario do not escape radical change. Facilities like fields have to adhere to strict water, power and fertiliser requirements. Flooding leads large cities to invest more in green spaces to act as sponges, benefiting sport and recreation. Competitive sport in school, beset by economic and environmental concerns, declines in favour of “wild play” on pitches and in forests alike. The international sporting realm winds the clock back a few centuries, with less overseas travel and longer trips for teams and athletes.

Scenario 2 sees the world make some progress, but not enough to reach its targets. Technological impact is underwhelming. We look on track for around 2 degrees Celsius of global warming by 2050. Outdoor sport suffers disruption from increasingly common extreme weather events. Rising heat and humidity give rise to new pests and diseases, while increased fees and transport costs slice staff and volunteer numbers in half. The decline in playing opportunities dries up our elite athlete talent pool, so many of our best leave for better opportunities overseas.

In Scenario 3, many global climate commitments fall apart. New Zealand suffers, but is not as badly affected as other countries – becoming a lukewarm pie on the world’s windowsill. Funding for sport and recreation is slashed by the government in favour of coping with the immigration boom. Virtual sports are all the rage and even gain real-world equivalents. Traditional sports adapt, becoming shorter, snappier, and more intense (while the report doesn’t mention this, I assume five-day Test Cricket is doomed…)

Scenario 4 is nightmare fuel, but fortunately unrealistic. I mean, what kind of country would “reduce investments in nuclear power, hydrogen, renewables, carbon capture, and the circular economy and accelerate the exploitation of coal and other fossil fuels”? It certainly couldn’t be us! With 2.5 degrees of global warming in 2040, the outdoors is no longer viewed as a safe and reliable environment. Those still participating wear high-tech gadgets that tell them when to get the fuck back inside. Swimming and other sports done on awa or the moana are simply too dangerous. A variety of new “extreme weather sports” played during severe storms become popular among adrenaline junkies wanting to pit themselves against the elements. These events are often sponsored by oil and mining companies.

With these glimpses into the possibilities of the future, I’m almost glad I’m starting to feel my back giving up.

Is this a Napoleon moment?

There is nothing we can do. Sport and recreation busts out an estimated 0.8% of global emissions, and New Zealand emits about 0.1% share of the world’s total. Mash those numbers together, and it amounts to approximately not very much. Except that’s not really the point, because, as every exasperated climate change scientist will tell you, every tonne counts.

Some sports organisations have begun taking steps in the right direction. SailGP has committed to becoming the world’s first climate-positive sports and entertainment institution. Yachting New Zealand and Golf New Zealand have developed sustainability strategies and have made some tangible advancements. But the real power sport lies not in curbing its own emissions but rather in its global reach. Education, advocacy, and soft power. Promoting climate action messages in stadiums and broadcasts. Setting clear targets and commitments. Who knows, maybe a certain football club in the city of Manchester could finally wean itself off oil. 

And you can argue that politics should be kept out of sport, and I hear you. But, as laid out above, the future of sport as we know it depends on decisions made by politicians now and over the next few decades. And just look at examples like the state-sponsored Russian Olympic doping scandal a decade ago, and more recently how India has been using cricket as a foreign policy tool (search ‘Why isn’t Bangladesh playing in the T20 World Cup?’). You begin to realise the two are inextricably linked. We need to ask more of our leaders.

To my shame, I’ve often pushed away any climate-related dread by dismissing it as a problem for the distant future. Lorde – Pure Copium. The past few years, though, have taught me that this is happening to us now. And those 2040 scenarios are less ‘distant future’ and more ‘Happy 46th birthday, Dad!’ I hope I get a mug and some socks. My blown back and diseased knees will have sidelined me by then. Sometimes I imagine taking my kid home after a string of cancelled games – this time Lake Taupō completely evaporated and then fell on the field. That breaks my heart.

Plus, I couldn’t forbid them from taking part in those ‘extreme weather sports’ as conditions would make helicopter parenting way too dangerous.