Extreme Heat Breaks: The hidden climate story behind the World Cup

About this episode

The episode discusses the implications of extreme heat during the Men's Football World Cup and its broader impact on climate adaptation and public transportation.

For the first time, all 104 matches at the Men's Football World Cup will be stopped for a mandatory three-minute hydration break, halfway through each half. For the first time, a global audience of billions will watch climate adaptation happening in real-time. This week, Tom Rivett-Carnac, Christiana Figueres and Paul Dickinson look at what a football tournament, a transit scandal, and an oil war have in common. Around a quarter of World Cup matches played over the next few weeks are projected to be played in conditions that exceed recommended heat safety limits - twice the risk of the last US-based World Cup, in 1994. Only three of the sixteen stadiums across the US, Mexico and Canada are climate-controlled. This will be a trial for elite players, who can adapt up to a point, but what does this mean for the parks, cages and school pitches where the ‘beautiful game’ actually begins? The Count Us In campaign, Where Football Lives, hopes that this can bring about a conversation: one about how extreme heat will change how we live, and what we love. So, should those three-minute breaks be called what they actually are: extreme heat breaks? And a World Cup falling during a moment of…

People in this episode

Hosts: Tom Rivett-Carnac, Christiana Figueres, Paul Dickinson

Topics covered

• climate adaptation
• extreme heat
• World Cup
• transportation issues
• sports and climate change

Keywords

• extreme heat
• World Cup
• climate change
• hydration breaks
• transportation
• sports
• climate adaptation

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Count Us In

Places: US, Mexico, Canada

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