Deputy Secretary-General, Issuing Message for International Day, Urges Push by All in Sport to Accelerate Renewable Energy Transition

Following is the text of UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed’s video message for the International Day of Sport for Development and Peace:  “The Role of Sport in Combating Climate Change”, via UN YouTube and WebTV.un.org, today:

Excellencies, colleagues, friends and sport fans, I am pleased to join you for the 2022 International Day of Sport for Development and Peace.  From makeshift playing fields to giant arenas, we see how sport unites and inspires people all around the world.  Sport promotes respect and equality and is an effective catalyst for communities to embrace diversity, foster inclusion, and advance development and peace for all — including for persons with disabilities, women and girls, and youth, among others.

Sport also provides a platform for tackling some of the gravest global threats to people and planet, like climate change, which is right now wreaking havoc in all countries, with the greatest impacts on the poor and vulnerable.

We need urgent and transformative action from all quarters, including sport, and the billions of people involved as participants, facilitators, owners, advertisers and supporters.  As the Secretary-General has said, “we must go into emergency mode against the climate crisis”, because “the battle to keep the 1.5°C goal alive will be won or lost this decade.  And we are far off-track”.

Major sporting events and leagues, athletes, and fans alike are poised to be powerful advocates for collective and collaborative political action.  The business of sport must show real leadership by slashing its carbon footprint this year and this decade, encouraging higher ambition from the private sector and promoting low-cost, high-impact, inclusive and accessible solutions.

Most crucially, we need everyone involved in sport to speak up much louder, and demand bolder actions from Governments and businesses alike.  Sport stars, pundits, sponsors and their creative partners are among the most influential personalities on the planet.  I urge you to call on Governments and business to accelerate the renewable energy transition, to phase out coal, and to help build climate resilience in local communities everywhere.  Use your voices and your platform to connect with people and youth in the billions, fire up their passions.  Show leaders that a just, healthy, and net-zero carbon planet is inevitable, but that it must quicken.

I hope you leave today’s conversation on “The Role of Sport in Combating Climate Change” inspired to take meaningful action to fight the climate crisis and drive forward all 17 Sustainable Development Goals.  It is a fight we will win… or lose together.  More than ever, we must unite as one team working together to create a safer, inclusive, more peaceful and more sustainable future for all.

Thank you.