Poor tackling: Yellow card for 2022 FIFA World Cup’s carbon neutrality claim

The report challenges the "carbon neutral" claim of the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, finding that the estimated 3.6MtCO2e footprint likely underestimates actual emissions due to flawed accounting of stadium construction. It further argues that the carbon credits provided by the Global Carbon Council lack integrity due to non-additionality and that the event's mitigation measures, such as a desert turf farm, are not durable.

• The reported greenhouse gas footprint of 3.6 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2e) for the 2022 World Cup is likely an underestimate because of the "use-share" accounting method used for permanent stadiums.
• The emissions attributed to the construction of six permanent stadiums (206ktCO2e) are significantly lower than the emissions for the single temporary Stadium 974 (438ktCO2e), which the report describes as an "illogical outcome" of the accounting methodology.
• The total construction footprint of the permanent stadiums may be underestimated by a factor of eight, potentially amounting to 1.6MtCO2e instead of the reported 0.2MtCO2e.
• The carbon neutrality strategy relies on the Global Carbon Council (GCC), which as of May 10, 2022, had only two registered projects and had issued just over 130,000 credits, far below the 1.8 million credits expected from the standard.
• The carbon credits from the GCC are criticized for lacking environmental integrity because they primarily consist of grid-connected renewable energy projects that are likely not "additional."
• The claim that a large-scale tree and turf nursery in the desert will absorb CO2 is deemed not credible because carbon storage in these artificial spaces is unlikely to be permanent.
• FIFA's broader goal of reaching "climate neutrality" by 2040 lacks transparency and precision, as there is no publicly available greenhouse gas inventory, reference years, or clear coverage of the target.

APA

Dufrasne, G., Crook, J., & Rao, D. (2022). Poor tackling: Yellow card for 2022 FIFA World Cup’s carbon neutrality claim. Carbon Market Watch. https://carbonmarketwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Poor-tackling_-Yellow-card-for-2022-FIFA-1.pdf

Chicago

Dufrasne, Gilles, Jonathan Crook, and Daniele Rao. Poor tackling: Yellow card for 2022 FIFA World Cup’s carbon neutrality claim. Carbon Market Watch, 2022. https://carbonmarketwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Poor-tackling_-Yellow-card-for-2022-FIFA-1.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Dufrasne |first1=Gilles |last2=Crook |first2=Jonathan |last3=Rao |first3=Daniele |title=Poor tackling: Yellow card for 2022 FIFA World Cup’s carbon neutrality claim |publisher=Carbon Market Watch |date=May 2022 |url=https://carbonmarketwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Poor-tackling_-Yellow-card-for-2022-FIFA-1.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{dufrasne2022poor, author = {Dufrasne, Gilles and Crook, Jonathan and Rao, Daniele}, title = {{Poor tackling: Yellow card for 2022 FIFA World Cup’s carbon neutrality claim}}, institution = {Carbon Market Watch}, year = {2022}, month = may, url = {https://carbonmarketwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Poor-tackling_-Yellow-card-for-2022-FIFA-1.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }