The climate crisis is wreaking havoc but sport can be a part of the solution

On Saturday 4 January 2020, my local cricket club was smack bang in the middle of the hottest place on earth, with Penrith in Sydney reaching a scorching high of 48.9C. The devastating bushfires of that summer saw kids’ matches and Big Bash League games alike postponed or even cancelled due to the smoke haze, as players played through toxic air.

I turned up to watch a Sheffield Shield game at the SCG and was unable to see the ball because the smoke was so thick. There was even a concern it could delay the start of Australia’s third Test against New Zealand.

Two years earlier in 2018, I played in the Ashes Test in Sydney where England captain Joe Root was admitted to hospital after batting through a 47C day in a helmet and pads. When we were batting earlier in the day, we delayed our declaration, even though we had plenty of runs, because we decided it was too hot to be out in the field.

And it’s not just Australian cricket that is impacted. The Cape Town drought of 2015-18 in South Africa resulted in the temporary cancellation of club and school cricket due to extreme water rationing. Bangladesh is ranked the seventh most climate-vulnerable country by the Global Climate Risk Index, while Pakistan comes in at eighth. In August 2020, Karachi in Pakistan received 230mm of monsoon rain, the highest amount of rain to fall in a single day in that city.

Global warming is already wreaking havoc on our sport. And, while sport may not be the obvious or most important reason to tackle climate change, it gives us a window into the kind of future we could be facing.

It is clear we are not doing enough to reduce carbon pollution, largely from the burning of coal, oil and gas. Scientists are clear we need to at least halve our carbon