Rising questions on Qatar’s Green Tournament

Climate activists are reluctant to trust the host nation Qatar, which is otherwise the highest emitter of per capita carbon dioxide. However, the host is quite firm that it will keep emissions low and remove as much carbon from the atmosphere as the tournament produces by investing in projects that will capture greenhouse gases.

"There is no such thing as a carbon-neutral world championship," Michael Bloss, a member of the European Parliament for Germany's Greens party, told CNN last week. "It's a bit of a punch in the face" for environmental efforts, Bloss said. "Calling it a green championship is bizarre."

Should one calculate the carbon footprint FIFA predicted in a February 2021 report the carbon footprint of the World Cup would be around 3.6 million metric tons of CO2.

The fact that Qatar has built seven new arenas specifically for this tournament, one of them temporary and six permanent, Carbon Market Watch (CMW), a nonprofit advocacy group specialising in carbon pricing, claims FIFA's claim is incorrect because it has excluded the emissions from cooling the air-conditioned stadiums. The footprint is calculated using only the 70 days the stadiums will be used whereas the maintenance of such spaces involves a lot more.

FIFA and Qatar pledge to offset carbon emissions by investing in green projects and buying carbon credits. The organisers have said, and the SCDL told CNN that since the tournament is yet to start "the ex-post carbon emissions inventory can only be finalised after the event." It added that it will be sowing the seeds for the largest turf farm in the world by planting 679,000 shrubs and 16,000 trees. The plants will be laid at stadiums and elsewhere around the country and are supposed to absorb thousands of tons of carbon from the atmosphere every year. Qatar says that the short distance between stadiums would negate the need for domestic air travel by fans and reduce the carbon footprint of the tournament, given its miniature size.

However, Qatar has previously announced plans for ticket holders stay in neighbouring countries and shuttle in and out of the country by air to attend the games.

"They are going to emit a lot of CO2 from the aeroplanes," Bloss, the German MEP, told CNN.

Akbar Al Baker, the chief executive of Qatar Airways, which partnered with regional airlines to arrange the 160 extra flights a day to the country during the tournament, defended the plan last week."[We] have airplanes which have very low emissions compared to the normal aircraft most of the other airlines fly," including long-haul flights,” he commented in a conversation with CNN's Becky Anderson.