Los Angeles fires should be ‘wake-up call’ to sports event organisers – experts

Data published by the European Copernicus service on Friday shows the year 2024 was an average of 1.6C hotter than pre-industrial temperatures, a new record. Last week United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres described the recent run of temperature records as “climate breakdown”.

With warming reaching new heights, extreme weather events increasing, and most major countries failing to reduce their emissions, adaptation to climate change is becoming increasingly important. Sport will have to do the same.

“What we are seeing now is that sports organisations are thinking less about ‘how do we stop climate change?’ and more about ‘how do we adapt to it?’,” said Kellison.

“So rescheduling, changing the calendar of competitions or fixtures, even fortifying sports facilities themselves or thinking about where the best place is to site them.

“Any sort of positive impact that we’re making won’t be felt for maybe generations and so dealing with what’s in front of us right now for sports organisations is really important. Expecting the unexpected is the best case scenario at this point.”

The devotion and dedication some fans have to sport means that fixtures and major events being compromised has the potential to make clear just how devastatingly real the danger posed by climate change truly is.

“Sometimes unfortunately it takes events like this for people to really wrap their brain around climate change,” added Kellison.

“It’s really when people feel it and when they are living it that they start to understand it. You can tell them that their lives or their children’s lives will be affected and that doesn’t really turn the needle, but talking about their favourite NFL team having to play somewhere else might inspire some interest.”

Sport has been at the apex of plenty of huge social changes in modern history, and now may have to be again.

“Coming together to be in friendly competition, in goodwill, and understanding each other, is a real benefit from these kinds of events and in many ways we need more of that,” said Stewart-Frey.

“We just have to figure out how we do that without destroying the environment at the same time.”