This article is a part of the UHC's Hot Topics in Urban Health Policy Blog Series and begins a short series by the Director of the Urban Health Collaborative, Ana V Diez Roux, elaborating on the parallels between the 2026 World Cup and the current state of public health.
July 12, 2026
Like virtually every town in Argentina, Port Iguazú in the province of Misiones is draped in Argentinian flags, and everywhere you look there are big screens to watch the World Cup games. We travelled to Port Iguazú in early July to visit the spectacular Iguazú falls: over 275 huge falls spanning 1.7 miles on the border of Argentina and Brazil. The amount of water in the falls varies depending on the season, and rainfall up in the Brazilian forests where the Iguazú River has is origins. When we visited, the falls were huge, and the river was overflowing its banks. The color of the falls was surprising to us: the water is tinged with a golden brown, with occasional darker brown streaks mixed with lighter brown foam. But the falls were not always this way. Photos from 30 years ago show them as a beautiful shining white with transparent water. We learned that this is because of intense upriver deforestation over the past decades. As a result, the soil washes off into the river and travels downstream, over the falls, a very visible sign of the ravages of deforestation and the damage that human activity is doing to our planet.
Deforestation is an important contributor to climate change, and efforts to halt deforestation were an especially prominent part of the discussions held at the United Nations Conference of the Parties (COP30) held in Brazil last November. Sadly but not surprisingly given opposition by powerful interests, the COP30 failed to reach a global agreement on halting deforestation. This occurred in the context of a global failure of COP30 to obtain real commitments to reduce fossil fuel dependency, the fundamental driver of climate change. The health consequences of climate change, as one more compelling reason to take urgent action, have been increasingly discussed at forums like COP30. I travelled to COP30 to present SALURBAL Climate work focused on documenting the health consequences of climate change on health across Latin American cities. Alas, the impact of the health argument has not been what many of us had hoped for.
Like everything else in our world, the World Cup is also impacted by climate change. During June, an unprecedented heat wave enveloped Europe with temperatures even above 40 degrees Centigrade (104 degrees Fahrenheit) in several countries. A similar heatwave affected the United States in late June and early July, cancelling July 4th celebrations across many cities including Philadelphia, and affecting many locations where the World Cup games were taking place. For example, the recent quarterfinal between England and Norway in Miami kicked off with a temperature of 91°F (33°C) in the stadium and a "feels like" temperature of 113°F (45°C). The changing climate is already impacting how the game is played, including the need for closed air-conditioned stadiums, late start times, as well as the “hydration breaks” which have now been institutionalized, although many, including fans who boo constantly during the breaks, object to the cynical use of the mandated breaks to cut away from the action and increase space for advertising.
Like many other consequences of climate change, heat waves have a major impact on cities. This is in part due to the urban heat island effect whereby the built-up areas of cities result in even higher temperatures than the surrounding areas. The effects of heat on health are not distributed equally: the environmental consequences of income inequality, historical racism, and associated historical residential segregation result in stark differences across city neighborhoods in both temperature and in the health implications of high temperatures, as our team at the Urban Health Collaborative (UHC) has shown for Philadelphia and other cities. Data from the Big Cities Health Coalition Data Platform managed by the UHC shows that heat waves have increased threefold compared to previous decades. In addition, the adverse health effects of heat are often exacerbated by other co-occurring environmental hazards, including air pollution, which can also be high in cities, as a result of high levels of automobile use and other sources located in urban areas, as well as the increasing wildfires that also impact cities even if they occur many miles away.
Understandably, much of the recent discussion of heat waves focuses on implementing city responses to buffer adverse impacts of heat, such as establishing heat warnings, providing information on behavioral change (hydration, avoiding the outdoors as much as possible, using air conditioning if available), and increasing access to cooling centers. These are all important strategies that need to be based on evidence and scaled up with special attention to the most vulnerable groups. But this is not enough. There are many other long-term strategies that need to be supported and expanded, including greening strategies which have been shown to reduce temperatures, promoting active transport and reducing automobile use, which can reduce emissions leading to global warming, and supporting compact development and mixed land use. Examples of many of these strategies implemented in cities exist. You can see some here and here. But these strategies require significant investment and also require grappling with the fundamental market dynamics which tend to reinforce urban sprawl, automobile dependence, and inequality, all of which interact to drive climate change and its health consequences. Networks of cities all over the world are banding together to advance what cities can do to both mitigate climate change and adapt to the changes we have already seen. Groups of scientists, including our own SALURBAL team across Latin America, are also working to generate the evidence that is needed to spur and support urgent action.
In a sign of more changes to come, the global players’ union FIFPRO is apparently in conversations about further changes that will be needed to protect players from excessive heat in the future. The next World Cup (2030) will be hosted by Spain, Portugal and Morocco (Europe is one of the parts of the world that is warming most quickly) and the one after that (2034) by Saudi Arabia, not exactly a cool area of the planet. But the relationship between the World Cup and climate change is not unidirectional: as a result of the multi-country hosting and the extensive air travel required, this year’s World Cup is estimated to have had the largest climate impact ever. The 2030 World Cup also proposes to have three opening games in Paraguay, Uruguay and Argentina to commemorate the tournament’s centenary, ensuring even more cross-continent travel.
On our way back from Argentina, returning from our visit to the Iguazú falls, our fellow passengers on the overnight flight (many dressed in “albiceleste” gear) watched the quarterfinals between Argentina and Switzerland on a single laptop with a shaky Wi-Fi connection held by a passenger in the middle of the center row of five seats. In a surreal scene, they stood behind the lucky passenger and packed into the aisles, peering into a barely visible screen. They cheered each Argentinian goal through the middle of the night as we flew more than 30,000 feet above the deforesting Amazon (likely close to where the brown Iguazú River has its origins). That game was played in Kansas in an open stadium where the Climate Central website estimated an 86% chance of performance-impairing heat. The same website predicts a >90% chance of performance-enhancing heat for the semifinals. Fortunately, both semifinals (Atlanta and Dallas) this week will be played in air-conditioned stadia, but this is poor consolation...air conditioning the planet is not an option.