Matangi Bole*
Introduction
In recent times, the challenge faced in outdoor sports is no longer the opponent but the climate across the field. The FIFA 2026 concerns over extreme heat, while Wimbledon continues to contend with rising temperatures and uncertain weather. Thus, across the sporting outdoor culture, climate disruptions are becoming persistent and no longer a rare interruption to the game. And now they are reshaping the way sport is organised and played.
The decisions regarding match schedule, venue, athlete safety, and spectator concerns are growing, and the welfare of these is shaped by climate-related risks. Nonetheless, through these upcoming challenges, sports governance continues to treat climate change as the primary operational issue. It takes measures such as cooling breaks, fixtures being rescheduled or postponed, but not as a legal and policy concern.
This regulatory gap raises an important question: if climate adaptation is becoming a major component of international environmental governance, then should it not also become a fundamental pillar of sports governance?
When Climate Alters the Rules of the Game
Outdoor sports have been governed through the assumption that environmental conditions remain stable, and the games are occasionally affected when weather interruptions take place. But today, this assumption holds no value, as the times have changed and the transformation of weather has taken place from an external variable to a decisive factor that influences the sporting culture across the globe.
Extreme weather events such as high temperatures, heatwaves, erratic rainfall, and poor air quality, which are no longer rare occurrences but a recurring reality, are affecting the players’ and spectators’ safety and the fairness and continuity of the sporting events. Hence, climate has now become an active participant and not a mere backdrop; it now determines when, where and under what circumstances the competition will take place.
The FIFA World Cup 2026 is an illustration that depicts this shift. Issues are being raised regarding the impact of extreme weather on scheduling and hydration for the matches in North American hosting cities. Moreover, Wimbledon continues to struggle with the increase in temperature and unpredictability of weather patterns; the Jannik Sinner incident at the Roland Garros, 2026 is an indication of the impact of extreme heat in tennis. Such struggles are common in cricket, where extreme heat and air pollution interfere with the game. This problem occurs with the marathons that have been moved to cooler times. Winter games have also been affected as the shortening of the snow season has made some locations unviable for winter sports. From all these instances, it is clear that climate change not only affects sporting activities but also affects governance through issues such as tournament scheduling, venue location, athletes’ safety, and emergency protocols.
Climate Governance Under International Law
Climate governance has moved from the classical aim of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to the governance framework through which states and international organisations foresee, manage, and adapt to climate-related risks. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and Article 7 of the Paris Agreement show such an evolutionary process, where adaptation is identified as a global goal, and states are asked to increase their adaptive capacity and resilience to climate change. Along with Sustainable Development Goals SDG 13 (Climate Action), these tools show that climate adaptation is no longer considered just as an environmental problem but as part of modern governance.
Finally, the precautionary principle, stated in Principle 15 of the Rio Declaration, underlines the importance of taking preventive actions in case of foreseeing a risk of serious or irreversible damage, even in case of scientific uncertainty. To avoid climate disasters, international climate law requires institutions to foresee such risks and implement resilience as part of the governance system. It allows us to see how climate adaptation should be understood as a governance obligation going far beyond environmental regulation.
Thus, the problem faced by sport is far from unique. Outdoor sports events become more and more vulnerable to exactly those types of predictable climatic threats that modern international climate law attempts to tackle. Since the need for climate governance implies that institutions should integrate the elements of adaptation and resilience into their policies, there are very good normative reasons to consider whether the approach towards the treatment of climate change by sports governance should remain purely practical.
Human Rights Approach to Athletes’ Welfare
Modern climate governance is interwoven with the protection of human rights. Human rights laws recognise that the phenomenon of climate change is likely to affect the exercise of basic human rights, such as the right to life, health, and human dignity. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) have been continuously interpreted to mean that States must undertake reasonable efforts to protect people from environmental risks. This trend has been greatly strengthened in the case of Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz v. Switzerland (2024) by the European Court of Human Rights, which has acknowledged that the failure of climate policies could involve a violation of human rights according to the European Convention on Human Rights.
With this perspective, climate hazards associated with outdoor sports no longer seem to be just operational or environmental issues. The risks of extreme heat, poor air quality, and dangerous playing conditions have an immediate impact on the health, well-being, and integrity of athletes and the integrity of the competition. As athlete welfare has long been acknowledged as one of the primary purposes of sport governance, sporting organisations can no longer treat climate adaptation as only an administrative concern. The introduction of climate resilience into sports regulations is simply a step that sports governance should logically take, given its responsibility to secure athlete welfare and fundamental rights.
Embedding Climate Governance into Sports Governance
These principles are beginning to affect sports governance slowly. The United Nations Sports for Climate Action Framework aims to encourage sporting organisations to reduce their emissions and engage in climate action in their governance framework. Likely, FIFA Climate Strategy and Strategic Objectives for the Global Game 2023-2027 identify climate resilience as one of the priorities for organisations. Additionally, the International Olympic Committee incorporates sustainability into Olympic governance and host-city planning through the Olympic Agenda 2020+5. As a result, it can be said that international sporting organisations have recognised climate change as a governance challenge and not merely an environmental concern.
However, the development of climate adaptation and resilience in international sport governance represents voluntary policy commitments and not regulatory requirements. No universal mandatory requirements exist regarding the climate risk assessment before granting hosting rights; no heat or air quality requirements exist for international competitions, and few mechanisms of accountability exist when sporting organisations ignore climate risks. As a consequence, while international climate law has already adopted the principles of adaptation and resilience, sports governance is still discretionary in its nature.
Can Climate Governance in sports follow the Anti-Doping Mechanism?
Among the major concerns raised in connection with potential climate obligations in sport is the fact that international sporting federations are not States and cannot be thus bound by international climate law. Nevertheless, this institutionally based concern is not new for sports governance. It was shown by the case of anti-doping regulation that the lack of treaty-making power should be treated as a governance problem rather than a legal one. Originally functioning through voluntary agreements, the World Anti-Doping Code has received more legal clout via the UNESCO International Convention against Doping in Sport (2005). This convention made it possible for States to reconcile national legislation with international sporting standards.
Thus, the illustration gives an important insight into climate governance in sport. Instead of making sport depend exclusively on voluntary sustainability agreements, international sports federations could elaborate harmonised climate standards regulating climate risk assessments, thresholds of heat and air quality, and adaptation strategies, with States and international organisations assisting in institutionalising and implementing these standards. Despite the difference in regulatory scope between climate adaptation and anti-doping measures, the basic governance principle is the same: sporting standards can be transformed into governance obligations via a proper international legal framework.
Limitations of the Anti-Doping Analogy
There are, nevertheless, some crucial differences that must be taken into account while transplanting the anti-doping model into the realm of climate governance. In contrast to the anti-doping framework, climate governance is more complex because it involves not only the problem of athletes’ behaviour but also the problem of the sovereignty of the hosting state, the construction of climate-proof sports infrastructures, and the financial capacities of the institutions involved.
Nonetheless, none of these factors should detract from the relevance of the proposed analogy. The anti-doping system itself met the problems of institutional resistance until the signing of the UNESCO International Convention against Doping in Sport, which provided a cooperative legal framework for States and the sports sector. Thus, the point to learn here is not a strict repetition of the anti-doping model but the understanding of its potential.
Towards a Climate-Resilient Sports Governance Framework
To move beyond voluntary commitments, sports governance must institutionalise climate adaptation through binding regulatory standards informed by the principles of adaptation, resilience, and precaution reflected in international climate law.
Such a framework needs to institutionalise at least four key measures of governance. Firstly, a mandatory climate risk assessment needs to become a requirement for allocating the right to host any competition, taking into account all the environmental risks alongside financial and infrastructural possibilities. Secondly, standardising the criteria for heat, air quality, and extreme weather needs to become mandatory in international competitions for athletes’ safety and fair competition. Thirdly, climate resilience needs to be incorporated into the design of stadiums and sporting infrastructure and into the planning of sports events, following the adaptation principle stated in Article 7 of the Paris Agreement. Finally, sporting federations need to have mandatory climate adaptation and emergency plans.
The absence of such regulation is becoming more and more indefensible. While climate governance in international affairs has gradually integrated adaptation, resilience, and precaution principles within its laws, sports governance still mostly depends on discretionary measures. With the increase in frequency and predictability of climate risks, sports organisations have to stop focusing on managing climate crises and build climate resilience into the very essence of their regulatory function, thereby protecting athlete wellbeing and sustainable development of outdoor sports.
Its success or failure will all come down to how well it is implemented. This means that rather than inventing new institutions, the climate obligations can be worked into current governing arrangements through such measures as conducting climate risk assessments in relation to the bids of host cities, fortifying the UN Sports for Climate Action Framework to include adaptation measures, and acknowledging the jurisdiction of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in any disputes regarding climate regulation obligations. It also means that implementation would need to be just to ensure that the creation of mandatory standards does not unfairly burden smaller sporting organisations or less developed host countries.
Conclusion
The issue is no longer about whether climate change impacts sports, but about whether sports governance is equipped to regulate the impact. With international climate law focusing increasingly on the concepts of adaptation, resilience, and precaution, sporting institutions have to adapt to this shift. The incorporation of such concepts into sports governance is necessary to ensure that outdoor sport is both safe and just.
* The author is a Second-year Student pursuing B.A. LL.B.(Hons.) at National University of Study and Research in Law, Ranchi. The author may be contacted at matangi.bole@nusrlranchi.ac.in.
This blog reflects the personal views of the author and does not necessarily represent the views of The Policy Chronicle.