The dirty World Cup
The 2014 World Cup in Brazil is still six months away but it’s already making news on many fronts. First, a crane crashed at a soccer stadium under construction, killing two people. The site in Sao Paulo was supposed to host the opening game.
That was still creating waves when FIFA revealed the event will dump more than 2.72 million tonnes of carbon dioxide into Earth’s atmosphere — equivalent to the amount produced by 560,000 cars, or 136,000 American homes, in a year.
And it’s at least a million tonnes more CO2 than was emitted by the previous World Cup in South Africa in 2010.
To be fair, most of that will come from air travel, as teams and fans jet around the world’s fifth-biggest country to get to the 12 different stadiums where the 64 World Cup matches will be played.
FIFA has promised to offset 100 per cent of the carbon dioxide produced, which could include financing reforestation programs in Brazil and new investments in wind energy and hydroelectric power. It is estimated that offsetting 2.72 million tonnes of carbon will cost about $2.5 million — nothing compared to the billions in revenue the games will generate.
The projects will be announced next year, FIFA has said.
Brazil’s capital, Rio de Janeiro, is also hosting the 2016 Summer Olympics.
Meanwhile, The Associated Press reported a few weeks ago that Russia’s state-owned rail monopoly dumped tonnes of construction waste into illegal landfills. The landfills are in an area classified as a water protection zone, and the dumping could lead to contamination of the groundwater supply for all of Sochi, site of the 2014 Winter Olympics.
Landfills remain in the spotlight because they are the single greatest source of anthropogenic methane, a powerful greenhouse gas with about 30 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide. Read more stories like this at: thestar.blogs.com/worlddaily