UOC engages athletes on climate change
What you need to know:
At the 2021 Cecafa Women Championship held on the astro-turf at Fufa Technical Centre – Njeru, one player from Eritrea amused the crowd when she ran to the bench midway through one of their afternoon matches and poured water in her shoes. Her mission was to cool them in the midst of such blazing heat.
Sport has an interesting relationship with climate and consequently the environment.
It is sort of a cart and horse story or even chicken and egg if you like. Emissions from sports events make a significant contribution to climate change, but on the other hand heatwaves, storms, and other weather-related issues affect competitions and impact athletes’ health and performance.
At the 2021 Cecafa Women Championship held on the astro-turf at Fufa Technical Centre – Njeru, one player from Eritrea amused the crowd when she ran to the bench midway through one of their afternoon matches and poured water in her shoes. Her mission was to cool them in the midst of such blazing heat.
Teams that love to pass the ball in football or hockey struggle to do show on rainy days on our not so developed pitches. Last weekend, a hockey player blacked out after her match. She had probably not fed properly or at all prior to the match and was undoubtedly dehydrated but the heat did not help matters either.
The volleyball community has largely abandoned outdoor matches at places like Makerere Business School because of how the rains affect play and basketball games getting washed out at YMCA used to be the order of the rainy season.
Sporting issues
But, on the other hand, have you stayed back at Mandela National Stadium after a Cranes match, to see how much waste (bottles, cans, plastic glasses, food containers, tickets among others) is left behind after fans exit?
Have you stopped to wonder how much carbon is left to dissolve in the thin air when over 700 swimmers, most of them driven to the venue, meet at a National Championship?
It is from this background, viewed at a larger scale, that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) set goals in 2021 to reduce its own emissions by 50 percent by 2030. At the Paris Olympics earlier this year, the IOC reemphasized the call to its members to follow suit in a campaign dubbed “Race to Zero”.
Over the weekend, Uganda Olympic Committee (UOC) under the Sustainability in Sport Commission chaired by Richard Mcbond Asiimwe held a three-day workshop “to create awareness on how athletes can cope with climate change, curb their carbon footprints, and what activities they can get involved in to cause change” among other things.
The workshop funded by the Olympic Solidarity and with over 100 participants, was attended by athletes from different feds, public agencies representatives from National Forestry Authority (NFA) and Moses Egaru from International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Esther Nakivumbi from TREEO – a company engaged in accelerating reforestation, Adrine Kirabo from Plan Vivo Foundation and Isaac Okiror Orena a lead consultant at Evaluation, Monitoring & Research International Limited.
Solutions
UOC’s Brandon Katura and Collins Ssemanda discussed the aims of the IOC and the former said they want to set “the role of national federations in setting policy and creating awareness and also having cleaner sports activities.”
“We want them to take care of waste management, use reusable products like water bottles instead of bottled water, digitize their tickets instead of issuing paper, encourage advocacy at their events, and enter into partnerships with pro-climate change bodies.”
Some federations have taken the lead but need to be more intentional and operationalize the things they have set on paper. Uganda Hockey Association (UHA), for example, signed a partnership with Uganda Baati to plant a tree in Mabira for every goal scored in the 2022 league.
Adaptation
When the different groups discussed their understanding of this phenomena under the guidance of Cissy Musiime, Regina Lunyolo and Kenneth Opedun, they established that despite the challenges posed to them, weather or climate issues, are also able to impact sports positively.
“Sport in Uganda is mostly played out-door but it rarely stops because of the rain. In fact the matches that continue become more challenging, which forces us to adapt our skills.
Although rare, it has forced the government and private sector into development of facilities. Some have opted for better venues that cannot be disrupted by running water during heavy rains,” one group discussed.