UEFA Euro 2024: which country will champion the climate?

The UEFA Euro 2024 will take place in Germany between the 14th of June and the 14th of July. For this new edition of the most popular European football event, UEFA (the Union of European Football Associations) has committed to reduce its environmental footprint by addressing the mobility by both supporters and the national teams participating. The biggest chunk of the tournament’s emissions, 80%, comes from transport.

UEFA is incentivising supporters to travel to and within Germany by rail by clustering group stage matches. For its part the German national rail company, Deutsche Bahn (DB) is offering match ticket holders cheap round-trip national train tickets, and subsidised InterRail pass for match ticket holders coming from outside of Germany.

Emissions from aviation keep increasing and, in light of the mounting impacts of climate change, the United Nations IPCC’s latest report says that emissions must be deeply and rapidly tackled in order to keep global warming below 1.5°C. The 6th of July 2023 was the busiest day for commercial aviation in history with 134,386 flights, and forecasts show that the number of passengers is set to double by 2050.

UEFA has set the grounds to facilitate sustainable mobility and avoid flying during the tournament; it is now up to the teams and the fans to take on this challenge.