UN Climate Change invites sports organizations and their stakeholders to join a new climate action for sport movement. This initiative aims at supporting and guiding sports actors in achieving global climate change goals.
Sports organizations can display climate leadership by engaging together in the climate neutrality journey. They can achieve this by taking responsibility for their climate footprint, which in turn will incentivize climate action beyond the sports sector, and therefore help global ambition step-up in the face of the threat posed by climate change.
Uniting behind a set of principles, sports organizations and their communities have created an initiative by collaborating in order to position their sector on the path of the low carbon economy that global leaders agreed on in Paris: Sports for Climate Action
UN Climate Change welcomes the leadership of the International Olympic Committee in contributing to key areas of action within this movement, and invites other governing bodies, sport federations, leagues and clubs, to join and jointly develop the climate action agenda in sports, by leading and supporting specific working groups and by bringing their expertise, tools and best practices into this framework.
Objectives:
Sports for Climate Action works towards two overarching goals:
- Achieving a clear trajectory for the global sports community to combat climate change, through commitments and partnerships according to verified standards, including measuring, reducing, and reporting greenhouse gas emissions, in line with the well below 2 degree scenario enshrined in the Paris Agreement;
- Using sports as a unifying tool to federate and create solidarity among global citizens for climate action.
Sports for Climate Action Principles
The Sports for Climate Action Initiative will provide sports organizations with a forum where participants can pursue climate action in a consistent and mutually supportive fashion by learning from each other, disseminating good practices, lessons learned, developing new tools, and collaborating on areas of mutual interest.
Participants in the Sports for Climate Action Initiative will commit to adhere to a set of five principles and incorporate them into strategies, policies and procedures, and mainstream them within the sports community, thus setting the stage for a wider dissemination of the message and long-term success.
Organizations are invited to sign up to the Sports for Climate Action principles, regardless of their current stage in their environmental endeavors and work collaboratively to identify and spotlight climate solutions.
UN Climate change will deploy its existing Global Climate Action platforms such as NAZCA, Climate Neutral Now, and Momentum for Change initiatives to inspire action, track progress and/or highlight success and provide recognition. UN Climate Change will also facilitate and coordinate the initiative within its resources and mandates.