The most significant sporting events such as the FIFA World Cup and world tours are major events generating significant cultural and economic value. But these events also involve huge greenhouse gas emissions caused by international travel, infrastructure construction and mass consumption.
Last week, a research team from the University of Cambridge published in the journal Communications Sustainability a novel framework for assessing mega-events from a “climate sustainability” perspective. Analyzing the 2026 FIFA World Cup, which ended on Sunday, and Coldplay’s 2024 European tour, researchers compared the consumer benefits of each event with the costs of broadcasting.
“Effective climate strategies for mega-events such as the World Cup go far beyond reducing operational emissions at venues, as this only accounts for a fraction of the total footprint,” Cambridge Professor Shaun Larcom explained in announcement about the report’s findings.
According to the research team’s estimates, expanding the 2026 World Cup to a 48-team format is expected to raise total emissions by approximately 590,000 tonnes compared to the 32-team tournament a year earlier, reaching approximately 4.23 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent. Of this total, 82 percent is accounted for by fan travel, with international travel accounting for approximately 3.07 million metric tons. Scientists found that estimated emissions from the 2026 World Cup are comparable to Iceland’s total annual emissions.
If the climate costs of these emissions were passed on directly to viewers, it would mean an additional cost of an average of $114 per game ticket. Applying the same framework to Coldplay’s 2024 European tour (10 cities, 32 shows, 1.9 million tickets), the climate cost without mitigation measures would be $11 per ticket. While the scale and distances traveled by fans differ from those during the World Cup – and the research team says it did not intend to directly compare the two venues – the route shows who the “key players” are in reducing emissions.
Coldplay has made efforts to reduce emissions associated with staging the show, including the exploit of mobile battery systems and power generation using solar power and a kinetic dance floor. However, researchers estimate that approximately 98 percent of the emissions reductions during Coldplay’s tour were due to fans voluntarily re-evaluating their travel methods. The team offered a dedicated app that allowed fans to compare low-emission transport options, as well as discounts on merchandise for fans who traveled in an eco-conscious way, helped influence this behavioral change.
As a result, Coldplay’s tour reduced fan travel’s greenhouse gas emissions by 48 percent. Combined with other measures, this reduced the tour’s total greenhouse gas emissions by 46 percent compared to a typical tour, effectively cutting them by almost half.
Scientists have proposed a two-stage economic decision-making framework that aims to address climate damage caused by mega-events. The first step is to compare the economic benefits to the organizer and the value to viewers – estimated on the basis of ticket demand – with the monetary cost of broadcasting. The study suggests that if the costs outweigh the benefits, organizers should consider limiting, redesigning or canceling the event.
When applied to the 2026 FIFA World Cup and Coldplay’s 2024 European tour, the framework showed that in both cases the economic benefits outweighed the climate costs. However, the researchers note that in the case of the World Cup, the calculations may no longer hold if the social cost of carbon emissions – that is, the cost per tonne of emissions based on the damage they cause – is higher.
“Large entertainment events likely provide more than enough welfare to cover broadcast costs,” Jackson Goldman, one of the study’s co-authors, said in the announcement. “What is now needed is the cooperation of organizers and fans to take responsibility for these emissions.”
The second step is to incorporate the costs of climate change damage into the total event costs. While the research team argues that organizers should be responsible for direct emissions related to venues and stage configurations, it maintains that the costs of indirect emissions – such as fans’ round-trip travel – should be borne by both organizers and fans.