An Environmental World Cup: Battle or Love Fest?

For billion of people worldwide, myself included, the World Cup is a transformative experience. But there's more to the matches than fancy footwork, crowds decked out in nationalistic face paint, and cooler talk about the day's penalty shots and goals.

Americans were gleeful at our 1-1 tie with England last week. But it wasn’t just about an upset by the underdog. It was also a venue for the U.S. to vent frustration about an environmental disaster caused our nation’s newest enemy: BP.

Yet despite everlasting rivalries (the Falkands War is relived again every time Argentina and England meet on the field), the World Cup creates a global community, united by a 90 minute game on a grasshopper green field, a few dozen people racing its length in pursuit of a little ball.

Yes, soccer has succeeded where politics and world religions have failed: the four weeks of the World Cup are one of the best uniting tools on Earth.

So in the spirit of the global games, it's important to also note that oil spills aren’t only an American phenomenon.

In fact, of the 32 countries competing, nearly all have experienced a massive oil spill. (So if all teams were inspired by environmental revenge, there might be even more head-butting testosterone on the field.) The only participating nations that have averted oil disasters are the landlocked nations of Switzerland; the Eastern European "S" block, Serbia, Slovakia and Slovenia; and a few lucky coastal nations, North Korea, Honduras and Paraguay. Every single other World Cup country has had at least one, if not multiple, oil spills in the past 25 years.

A small sampling of other major oil spills around the world include:

Argentina: A 3.7 million gallon spill created a 20 kilometer long slick of oil in 2008.

Australia: A bulk coal-carrier ran aground the Great Barrier Reef, and a damaged fuel tank leaked oil into the fragile ecosystem in April 2010.

Brazil: The world's largest oil rig leaked 316,000 gallons in 2001.

Spain: Twenty million gallons of oil remained underwater after the nation's largest environmental disaster in 2002.

Nigeria: The award for the biggest environmental wreck goes to Nigeria, the world's eight-largest oil exporting nation. This African nation that has been plagued by oil spills equivalent to the Exxon Valdez for the past 50 years, according to the New York Times, and an estimated 11 million gallons have spewed there annually for the last five years.

Oil spills are, in fact, so common that they generally go unreported and unnoticed. Because oil exploration and drilling in the Niger Delay provides 80 percent of the nation’s revenue, there is little policing of environmental ruin. As corporations ravish the land, some 31 million Nigerians suffer from extreme environmental and health degradation, poverty, human rights violations. Some fight back with low-grade violent campaigns against oil companies.

There are also major oil-producing nations competing in the World Cup.

Although some heavy-hitting producers, such as Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran, China and Canada, lack international soccer prowess, other key oil players battling it out on the soccer field include:

#3: US, nearly 8.5 million barrels a day

#6: Mexico, 3.5 million barrels a day

#14: Brazil, 2.8 million 
barrels a day

#15: Algeria, 2 million barrels a day

#19: Great Britain, 1.7 million barrels a day

Even if they’re not key figures in oil development and exploration, many other participating nations still use a lot of fossil fuels.

Some of the world’s top greenhouse gas emitters participating in the tournament are:

#2: US

#5: Japan

#6: Germany

#7: UK

#9: South Korea

#10: Italy

#13: South Africa

#14: France

#16: Australia

Yet it is the poorest countries that are most adversely affected by climate change, and the least equipped to deal with its consequences. These countries also happen to rank low in oil use and greenhouse gas emissions. Instead, they suffer primarily because of our oil use.

Among the lowest ranking greenhouse gas emitting tournament participants are:

#99: Ghana

#105: Cote d’Ivoire

#106: 
Uruguay

#124: Paraguay

#126: Cameroon

With such climate change heavyweights at World Cup, South Africa could be an opportunity for another global climate summit. Especially since the failure to reach a climate deal at the real negotiations in Copenhagen last December was about as frustrating as the United States' disallowed goal in Friday's intense match against Slovenia.

Maybe what was lacking in Copenhagen (sports, alcohol, pleasant weather, communal spirit) is readily available in South Africa? Could the World Cup climate talks succeed with a more congenial, collaborative environment?

Ok, this is a bit of a fantasy. but even if the players might not be trading barbs over oil and climate change policies, imagine if all of the vuvuzela blowing, colorful, exuberant fans directed a bit of their energy and excitement towards getting the world off its oil addiction.

Let’s have a virtual global warming World Cup to solve this crisis. We can all do our part to cut our oil use, stop global warming and live up to our collective desire for a clean environment. We can start by cutting our personal oil use and by demanding worldwide support for realistic climate change policies. It’s our collective future -- and a few more World Cups -- at stake.

Learn more about each country’s oil use, oil spills and greenhouse gas emissions here.