05 June 2026
Decorative by Design
FIFA’s climate criteria for World Cup hosts borrow the authority of international climate law without any enforcement consequence. The 2026 host country’s withdrawal from the parent treaty regime exposes the borrowing as decorative. On 11 June 2026, the US opens the tournament that promised environmental leadership and an emissions trajectory aligned with the Paris Agreement. FIFA treats this contradiction as a non-event. What exactly do FIFA climate criteria oblige, and through what mechanism? The answer, on close reading, is that they oblige very little. Continue reading >>
0 