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Adam Freed
48 Plays18 days ago
The head of sustainability for Bloomberg Associates on the meaning of this World Cup for cities, the moment for subnational leadership on the global stage, and how his hometown, New York City, continues to set the pace for climate research and innovation
This conversation is the latest in our series, Football and the Global City, exploring the intersection of sport and urbanism
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Transcript
00:00:01
Speaker
I'm going to go to the next one.
Impact of 2026 FIFA World Cup Host Cities
00:00:11
Speaker
The host cities of the 2026 FIFA World Cup were always destined to take center stage. 16 cities, 104 matches, together they showcase the diversity, dynamism, and global influence of these economic and cultural powerhouses.
00:00:23
Speaker
Still, other dimensions to the city's narrative have been especially resonant this tournament cycle. For urban leaders hoping to harness or simply understand the evolving currency of major sporting events, there are lessons.
Adam Fried on Sports and Urban Policy
00:00:34
Speaker
Enter Adam Fried, principal of Bloomberg Associates, the global cities consultancy. From Guadalajara to Bratislava to Los Angeles, Freed has helped cities tackle their biggest challenges and opportunities. Along the way, he's experienced firsthand how sport intersects with urban policy, economic development, and sustainability.
00:00:50
Speaker
Adam joins us to discuss what this World Cup means for cities, the tournament as a litmus for extreme heat measures, subnational leadership on the global stage, and why his hometown, New York City, continues to set the pace for climate innovation.
00:01:08
Speaker
But Adam, um set the scene for us, if you could.
Bloomberg Associates' Mission and Focus
00:01:11
Speaker
Give us the high level on Bloomberg Associates, what it what it does, who it serves, how it fits into the Bloomberg Philanthropies schema.
00:01:18
Speaker
Sure. So Bloomberg Associates is the pro bono consulting arm of Bloomberg Philanthropies. We're a 100% free pro bono consulting firm. We work with cities around the world. Our only mission is to improve the quality of life for residents in the cities in which we're working in. And you know we're largely organized around a set of practice areas. So everything from transportation to urban planning,
00:01:41
Speaker
arts and cultural asset management, municipal integrity, tourism, kind of all the nuts and bolts of city operations and things that make cities thrive. I lead our sustainability practice that incorporates everything from economic, social, and environmental sustainability. And at any given time, we're working with about half a dozen cities around the world.
00:02:01
Speaker
And your colleagues pull from previous administrations, is that correct? Yeah, ah many of us served among the the principals. There are eight principals at the firm. We all served in senior administrative roles within the Bloomberg administration. And then the rest of the staff comes from a variety of different cities, ah government organizations, nonprofit organizations and such.
00:02:22
Speaker
And I should note that we are here in HQ. You are here in New York City. Very
Guadalajara's World Cup Preparation
00:02:27
Speaker
good. Well, um Guadalajara is ah is a World Cup host city and one that wasn't without its its challenges in the leading up to the tournament. It's also it's a client of yours.
00:02:37
Speaker
To take Guadalajara as as ah as a case study, how does the Bloomberg Associates method or principle come to life through an engagement like like that? And how are your role and expertise expressed in particular? Yeah, and and I'm really excited that that not only is Guadalajara a host city and a client city, four other cities were actually client cities. So we also worked in Mexico City, Los Angeles, and Kansas City. So I feel we're more represented within the World Cup here than obviously the work that we did in New York during the Bloomberg administration. um
00:03:09
Speaker
you know Much of the planning that went on for the World Cup occurred long before our engagement Guadalajara started. They're a relatively new client. We have gotten a little bit involved at a higher level as they were thinking about not just the impact of the game, there are four games in Guadalajara that are occurring, but they have a 39-day long fan festival.
00:03:29
Speaker
And that that's going to be packed downtown. and how do they prepare the public spaces to make sure they could accommodate all the guests and the visitors who are coming and how do they make sure it can operate smoothly thinking about waste management and thinking about air quality um so again a lot of the plans were put in place before we got there we're helping think through a little bit of the operational side how do you make sure those plans go well and are there certain things you want to make sure you're getting out of this experience you know the A lot of focus and fixation is on the World Cup and and the events, but it's a moment in time along a broader journey for cities. So how do you make sure you get a lot of investments, operational learnings, innovations that come from that moment that can really lead to the long-term success of the city?
00:04:12
Speaker
So their World Cup prep was actually a linchpin of your your engagement? No, it actually was was a minor part of that beat because we got involved so close to the end. So it's been more of an advising on that as it relates Guadalajara directly.
00:04:27
Speaker
and And so what is the fuller scope with that with Guadalajara? Yeah, Guadalajara, you know, it's a fascinating city. Have you had a chance to be there? I regrettably have not. You should put it on your on your list, not just to watch soccer, but an incredible city. um So my practice, and and we're working with them on a couple of issues, thinking about housing affordability and and how can you you know ensure that people can continue to live there and and young people have opportunities to stay there. How can you revitalize and bring residents back to their historic downtown?
00:04:55
Speaker
where you can both preserve the culture of the downtown and the historic fabric there, but also create housing and do so in an affordable way so that people can can stay there. Thinking about waste management and how can the city continue to lead on keeping the city clean and dealing with waste in a more sustainable fashion. And this is something that was a hallmark of the new administration from the mayor. She took over the waste management function, which had been done by private entities by the city and has really been spearheading huge efforts to clean up the city. And then we're helping them think apropos of this conversation, I think, to a degree, how to understand and deal with the impacts of climate change on the city.
00:05:34
Speaker
What does Guadalajara need to look like with increasing temperatures, with more intense rainfall? Are there you know changes they need to make to the urban fabric of the city? Are there operational changes that need to occur to make sure the city can continue to grow and thrive?
Long-term Benefits of Major Sporting Events
00:05:48
Speaker
Hmm. From where you sit, i how do sport and major sporting events unlock that innovation specifically that goes beyond the the immediate benefits, of economic impact, brand lift, so forth, for for cities? And I guess what specifically do cities and city halls need to have in their in their DNA, the the mechanisms or there or the mindsets to to take full advantage of them? Yeah, you know, as I mentioned earlier, I think successful cities, when they're thinking about these events, whether it's the World Cup, the Super Bowl, ah any major sporting of anricultural event or cultural event, you the successful cities realize that these events are, are you know, a moment in time, not the end point. And they can galvanize investment. And often that long-term trajectory and those investments, whether it's in mass transit, public spaces, cultural organizations and institutions, those bear fruit long beyond the the final whistle of whatever the match is. And that can be both for tourism, it can be for improvements that come to
00:06:48
Speaker
commuters and and residents and how they get around. And I think that's been one of the exciting to things to see with cities that do this well. um You can think about Barcelona. Some of the people who have talked about some of the investments that were made in Athens, things that occurred in Atlanta, where were cities invested in the core infrastructure that was necessary not just to host the event,
00:07:09
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but to help the city continue to grow. And I think that's where the innovation can come in to a city to say, not just houses, a departure from the trajectory and the investments that are necessary here, but how are we leveraging this moment in time, the intention, the investment, the opportunity to shine, to really galvanize and catalyze and increase investment. And that that can be innovation in technology, or can just be an innovation in delivery. And how do you get things to be done faster? In a way, Rio did the same thing when they hosted kind of the Olympics. that These things can really speed up things. You saw this in Paris with cleaning up the Seine.
00:07:44
Speaker
These are moments in time that I think can galvanize the coalitions and the political support that's necessary for large-scale change. And that bears fruit for a long
Leadership in Climate and Infrastructure
00:07:52
Speaker
time. Well, you mentioned ah Mayor Delgadillo Garcia. um taking back the waste management process from a private firms. So what does that say in terms of having the political will in in City Hall to be able to do some of these, to affect some of these changes? Yeah, I think leadership matters. And I think that political will is really the biggest driver. You know, when it comes to, again, my my area of focus, it really is around climate change.
00:08:19
Speaker
It's not that we don't know what to do. it It's really is there the will to you know find the coalitions and the resources and the mechanisms to scale it up. And to have a leader who's willing to do that and take on some of these tough choices is absolutely critical to making any progress. And I think that's what you know mayors who are willing to take that up, whether it's around waste management, whether it's around housing, whether it's around climate action, air quality, as we're we're seeing in London, the dramatic improvements they've had there.
00:08:48
Speaker
And that is the single most important ingredient to have a large scale change. Heat and and extreme weather were or have been storylines of this of this tournament. And what are some of the
World Cup and Urban Planning for Climate
00:09:01
Speaker
solutions, whether be at Guadalajara or elsewhere, that you've seen that may have expressed this World Cup or in the run-up?
00:09:09
Speaker
Yeah, and look, this is this is the first World cup where we're seeing mandatory hydration breaks that are coming in, and it's really having an impact on on the state of the game. But it's not just what's happening to the players. It's it's how are fans being kept safe? How are the people who are constructing the stadiums and all the other infrastructure, are they being kept safe as people are going to and from? The nice thing is, is we know ways to keep people cool and and to help protect cities, planting trees, reducing the amount of dark pavement and rooftops that you have. And that can be either removing it and replacing it with other materials like grass or or trees or coating it a lighter color. So it it reflects the heat in a different way, um reducing heat sources as much as you can. So internal combustion engines from cars and buses, EVs don't generate excess heat. Things like that can have a really big impact. Larger scale things, and you're you're seeing this in places like Singapore, where within their urban plan they create wind quarters and think about how you can bring cool air into a city. Some of the cities in Latin America, Bogota and Medellin, are creating green quarters to bring air down in from the mountains to help cool the cities. So there are a lot of practices that need to be done. Unfortunately, when when it comes to urban heat islands, when it comes to overheating cities,
00:10:19
Speaker
It's not by accident that they're so hot. It's actually by design, that that we forgot how to design cities or we deliberately designed them in a way that retained heat and caused them to overheat. And we need to undo that. And retrofitting a city and thinking about how we can bring nature back into the urban environment, It's hard and it takes time and it means that you're having to remove the things that are already there.
00:10:41
Speaker
This World Cup was meant to have been the most sustainable tournament on record and were one to have taken FIFA at its original word. It's a claim that um retreated into the night about a year and a half ago, perhaps not coincidentally, along with the US participation in climate accords and the federal funding meant to aid cities in their in their resiliency ambitions. When I think about what you're talking about and and say, Bloomberg's American Sustainable Cities Imperative, which not for nothing maps against host cities and and base camps and and other soccer capitals and in the U.S. s How much has policymaking at the national level forced a reappraisal or or a reassertion for that sort of programming?
00:11:20
Speaker
You know, i I think we've always believed here in Bloomberg Associates' focus on cities. One of the hallmarks of Bloomberg Philanthropies is its focus on cities and investment in local leadership. It's no surprise that that our founder was a former mayor of New York City. um Cities are really where on the ground action happens and and where they're
Cities as Climate Leaders
00:11:40
Speaker
leading. And I think that's where we continue to invest in cities because they're always going to be at the cutting edge of climate leadership and climate action. It's when there's an emergency, if there's a heat wave, if there's a flood, people are turning to City Hall for help. That's their first stop. They're they're the world's first responders. It's the role that mayors play around the world. And I think that's something that we've recognized and tried to lean into and support.
00:12:02
Speaker
It's much more helpful when you have a supportive federal government that can help rise the bar for every other city and make a little bit easier. But you know not having federal support doesn't you know remove the responsibility and the need for cities to take action. and and that's where we continue to see that occur. With the advent of funds like that, those are the ones of JPMorgan Chase, BlackRock, Goldman targeting critical industries and infrastructure creating. um How does this change the calculus? How does this fill some of the the gap? And how how how is, if at all, Bloomberg Associates sort of positioning itself in the middle of that financing? Yeah, I think cities and climate action, it's not a sacrifice. It's a huge opportunity for investment. The amount of money that needs to come in to upgrade infrastructure in cities, um you know to continue to allow them to grow, to power the economic engines that not just in the U.S., but in every country, it comes from cities. That has not gone away. And I think that's a huge opportunity that more and more people are recognizing. And it's not a climate argument that's winning, it's an economic and a financial argument that more efficient energy sources, more reliable energy sources, more efficient and reliable transportation sources, cleaner, healthier air that allow people to live longer and be healthier helps the economy and that's where we see cities really playing a critical role in that and all the infrastructure funds all the investments that are coming in are recognizing that that that's where the future lies and it's been really exciting to see and that that's where we work with our cities to help understand where the greatest needs are and where partnerships and coalitions can help them achieve that because the scale of the challenges that face cities
00:13:39
Speaker
are far too large for any of them to solve on their own. They need private sector partners, they need public sector partners, they need other levels of government. And that's where we constantly help them thinking about how do they bring that coalition together? How do they layer in their own funding to play a role to attract private funding, to attract other levels of government of funding, to really level up what they can do to meet their ambitions?
00:14:01
Speaker
Sovereign wealth, of course, has been a major actor in in football yeah globally. Is is that ah a major piece of of of climate finance? It certainly could be, and I think we're seeing more and more looking in that direction as they're looking to diversify where their investments are. um Where it comes in, I think, remains to be seen. But you've been seeing that a lot from the Nordic pension funds and other areas as well, that they've been a real driver of it. So sovereign wealth comes from a lot of different areas and I think has been one of the things that can lead to catalytic change.
00:14:32
Speaker
Well, this is something of a moment for the, and by by that I mean today, even for the mayor to head of state career track, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, for a variety of reasons, has been an interesting character on this front. Now, of course, there's Andy Burnham.
00:14:49
Speaker
Spotlighted in your your City Lab Summit not ah not a few weeks ago for whom so-called Manchesterism and and being the first responder that you that you reference, that the world's first responder, is nothing less than ah than a governing thesis and and economic vision. Without necessarily lumping the the the two figures together, what might the ascendancy of the the burn the Burnhams and the Schoenbaums tell us about the the potency of of subnational leadership? I look I think it's an incredible proving ground and I think it requires pragmatism and voters demand results. I always go back Ferro LaGuardia in New York who said there's no Democratic or Republican way of collecting the garbage and I think mayors have to deliver and as more and more voters and other people are looking to results they're looking to mayors and looking at people who have demonstrated that they can
00:15:40
Speaker
drive action and improve people's lives and and mayors continue to do that leaving aside british politics if it's even possible and you were just uh in in london you know bernan does have a lot to prove and and certainly uh some to lose what in your view are his biggest opportunities and and challenges You know, I think it's interesting that one of the things he's leading on is devolving power to cities and saying, how do we help local leadership make more decisions and empower them to deliver results for their residents? And I think that's incredibly exciting. We've already seen in London, which is another one of the Bloomberg associate client cities where you give mayors power, they can take great action. So Mayor Kahn came in, air quality was a critical concern to him. He pushed to expand their ultra low emission zone.
00:16:30
Speaker
They were able to do that. They put that in place, faced a lot of political pressure. This is where that question of political will comes in again. He pushed at it. And as I was in London last week for London Climate Action Week, New results came out that not only showed you know how much air quality is improving, but they had a drop in accidents and fatalities and yeah ER visits and people who are going to the hospital because of air quality issues.
00:16:53
Speaker
And that's where the rubber really hits the road. And so the more you can empower mayors, the more you can enable them to deliver, the more that they will. Yeah, well, ah on the local level, we now have this...
00:17:05
Speaker
In the US, this pink tide, if you will, of of democratic socialists coming into power.
Nonpartisan City Improvements by Bloomberg
00:17:10
Speaker
on certain issues, there would seem to be alignment with the Bloomberg Associates agenda and worldview and and others decidedly less so. um How has this phenomenon impacted your your thinking or scenario planning?
00:17:24
Speaker
You know, i we continue to focus on results, and and that's where the work that we do is apolitical. We're focused on how do we improve the quality of life for residents in the places that we're working. I'll go back to LaGuardia, who was talking about there's no Democratic or Republican way to pick up the garbage. We focus on what is the data telling us are the biggest challenges facing cities. How do we support decision makers and the city staff to be able to deliver against that and to diagnose the problems and then develop solutions that are targeted to help the most residents possible and delivering against that. you
00:17:55
Speaker
We got to bring it back to New York City and one of the most impressive projects that I think capsulates the Big Apple as a sustainability authority and and prototype is the climate exchange on Governor's Island, which is just a ah short ferry trip from the tip of of lower Manhattan. You, of course, are are on the board. Take us through it, if you would. It's it's coming into being. It's vision as ah as ah as a climate campus and and laboratory as as an exemplar of adaptive reuse and as a model for cross-sector collaboration. Yeah, and I'd be negligent if I also didn't point out that Governor's Island is hosting watch parties for the World Cup as well, so a world-class destination for for football and soccer fans around the world to come to as well. um But the climate change really was born of an idea that um
00:18:39
Speaker
in some ways started in the Bloomberg administration when when Mike Bloomberg as mayor, and when he's running for mayor, really made a push to get Governors Island given back to the city. It was under federal control at that point. We were able to get it back to city, turning it into a park, and he said this would be a great place for a premier educational institution as well. It's it's a small island right off of the the tip of Manhattan, as you alluded to incredible views of the Statue of Liberty. um Fast forward, there was an ah RFP that was put out saying, let's open a Center for Climate Solutions at Governors Island. We want it to be anchored by an academic institution, not an academic institution in and of itself. And that that ah RFP was won by a coalition that was put together by Stony Brook University in Long Island. and they really had an interesting model and that was something that attracted Bloomberg Philanthropies to support it. It said, you know, not only do we want it to be an academic institution, but we want to bring private sector partners and we want to bring public sector partners for non-profits.
00:19:38
Speaker
Because again, climate change is not something that can be solved at the single sector or even a single academic institution. So it's a consortium of different organizations that came together. We are building a physical center there. It's going to be the first mass timber structure in New York, an incredibly sustainable center that can host events, that can host classes, that can host students, professors, research activities, public events, all of that on Governor's Island. So you can come and and touch and feel and talk about the things that are happening. um But it's also something that is really going to be a thought leader. And it's a global institution that's anchored in New York, but is thinking around the world, you how do we address things in urban resilience? How do we think about climate data stewardship in a different way in the world that we're in today? how do we think about climate finance given that we're stone's throw from lower manhattan and how do we bring the best so it is stony brook it's duke university uh it's cuny it is ibm it is moody's it's a number of different partners um from around the country and around the world it's oxford state business school that are working together to say we need to find the best solutions and pathways to scale those across geographies to really accelerate the pace of change. And have you had cohorts of students so far? Not yet. So so they're working through, there have been programs that are going through. We're about a year and a half old. So we're we're you know running programming. We're raising money to build the building and and working through that.
00:21:09
Speaker
But the doors will will be opening in a few years and and we'll be able to have students there and researchers. Very good. Well, and neither New York City nor the field of urbanism would be what they are today without without Mike Bloomberg, who I should say was my mayor for 12 years. what Where has urbanism as ah as a movement, as a discipline which owes so much to to Bloomberg, um perhaps come up short over the last 10 to 15 years? Where have ideas or optimism or even hope not necessarily met the sidewalk level realities and rigor?
Challenges in Modern Urbanism
00:21:44
Speaker
you know i like I think we are all struggling with the pace of change around the world now and how quickly things are evolving. And and maybe i I'll put it in that terms rather than saying that urbanism has failed or fallen behind. But we've seen the pace of change when it comes to certainly climate change and how quickly the climate is evolving and and accelerating and the pace of extreme events. We're seeing that in income inequality. We're seeing that in housing shortages. In many ways, it is you know facing a deficit of 30 years of disinvestment in affordable housing or longer on many scales.
00:22:20
Speaker
But you're now seeing the acute results of that and needing to be much faster at how you respond to those changing trends and the evolving atmosphere in which we're in. And I think you know cities need to be much more nimble around that. And that gets harder in a world that's resource constrained. where you have finite resources for even greater needs and more emergencies that you're dealing with, whether it's from climate or whether it's from other sources that are putting strains on city resources, city finances, and city attention. So how do you manage all of that as you're trying to deal with these changes? And it has sustainability, of course, has as evolved into and encompasses
00:23:01
Speaker
whether right or wrong, is so many definitions and connotations. um how has has your evolve ah as your Are you touching more across the practice than than than you had? Yeah, and I think it's been a really healthy evolution.
00:23:16
Speaker
you know, when Plan YC, which was New York City's sustainability plan under the Bloomberg administration, came out in 2007, it, I still think, remains the only sustainability plan of its time, where housing was the first chapter in that plan, because the the whole premise is New York was going to have a million more people.
00:23:34
Speaker
How do you house them in a sustainable way, and how do you leverage that growth to create a greener, greater New York? And I think housing has only become even more important and and a bigger focus. you You cannot be a sustainable city if people can't afford to live there, both from a moral and an ethical perspective. But you're also then trading off costs for housing and people are living farther and farther outside of a city their communities.
00:23:58
Speaker
increasing their greenhouse gas emissions, they're locking that in for a generation. Or they're forced to live in areas that may be cheaper because they're not safe. It's in a flood zone, or it overheats, or you're building it cheaply, and that puts people's lives at risk. So i think housing and and equity are two issues that have become much more focused within the sustainability um
Addressing Historic Urban Design Issues
00:24:19
Speaker
movement. And then I also think are a recognition that we need to undo damage that's been done in the way that we've designed cities. When you look at the historic impacts of redlining and what that's meant for overheating of cities and why some neighbors neighborhoods are harder than others. As I said, it's not by accident. It is by design that some neighbors flood
00:24:38
Speaker
more than others. It is not by accident, but by design that some neighborhoods are hotter than others. And we need to think about how we can go about and and address those issues. Well, and public health is is, of course, so closely associated with with Bloomberg. Where do you sport and recreation, as we're talking about all of this, fit into your personal understanding of what makes cities livable and and resilient? And how has wellness, for lack of better term, infiltrated policymaking or or thinking?
00:25:06
Speaker
You know, I think there's a greater understanding that that cities can be engines of positive public health or can really inhibit it. And when you think about a sustainable city from a sports lens, and you know I'm a father of two boys. They're both incredibly avid soccer players. um Thinking about how many places there are to kick a ball in a city, I think is a proxy for is it a healthy, thriving city. The more green space you have, the more it encourages you to be able to be healthy and live an active lifestyle. But it also means you're cooler. It means that you're not flooding as often. It means that your air quality is better. So I think there's a really direct correlation between that. It also helps with cultural identity. it helps with kind of the social solidarity that can come together.
00:25:49
Speaker
All the cities that I visit and work in, i try to take in ah a soccer match or whatever sporting match it is. um And, you know, you can tell a lot about a city by, you know, who's attending the matches and and how they interact and and what the environment is around that. And it can do a lot to bring us together. Just look at what happened in New York. I don't know if you're here when the Knicks were in the playoffs. I've never seen New York come together with so much love and brotherhood and excitement. And I think that really shows the power of sports. And you're seeing that with the World Cup as well, and the environment of the matches. And, you know, I think the Scottish apparently fell in love with the US when they were here. And I think every city boston where they came, they fell in love with Scotland. and And that really is a powerful force that I think is really important for us to embrace and recognize, whether it's sports or culture, that it really helps shape a city identity and it can really help move a city forward in a positive way.
World Cup's Role in Urban and Community Engagement
00:26:45
Speaker
Well, we've banged the drum for a long time for World Cup as a city story. and It's funny because when I when i first moved to to New York after after college, the first thing I did was find a um a soccer club to join.
00:26:56
Speaker
And and it was it was scarce. The the soccer pitches were were, especially in Manhattan, scarce to be found. it was a lot of Roosevelt Island, it was a lot of Randall's Island, if not further flung locales, but but now it's just um it's part of the landscape, and it really is. I agree with you, you know so much this series was actually inspired by Brooklyn Bridge Park at Pier 5, or Pier 5 at Brooklyn Bridge Park, which I know that revitalization was a Bloomberg-led one, if i'm not mistaken.
00:27:28
Speaker
Yeah, to me, that's a bellwether for for so much of of what's happened in the built environment and the city's focus on this as a as a bedrock principle. Yeah, and look, I think while the World Cup is played in stadiums, it's really experienced in cities.
00:27:43
Speaker
And that's the exciting part. Hopefully, as fans are going to the different stadiums, they're seeing everything that has to offer. And i do think the soccer culture in the U.S. is changing. I think every time there's a World Cup, people say we've now hit the tipping point. ah Whether or not we're there at this World Cup or not.
00:27:57
Speaker
But the number of youth soccer leagues, the number amount of talent that's now being exported from the U.S. to play elsewhere, and the number of players who are coming to the U.S. s even to play in the MLS and the academy system is really growing. And I think that is very positive. also think it's a reflection of the ah multicultural dynamic within the U.S. that, you know, it's not just fans coming in from other places to see the games. It's the homegrown fans who are here from Colombia, from Ecuador, from different places who are in the World Cup that are here to see their their teams playing because they live in the communities in which the the World Cup is happening.
00:28:31
Speaker
Well, we've banged the drum for a long time for World Cup as a city story. And has anything from this tournament emerged, whether storylines, characters, places that that is surprised or or resonated with you?
Climate Change's Impact on Sports
00:28:43
Speaker
You know, I think one of the storylines that better or worse that that will carry through with us. And we've seen this now in a couple of World Cups. It's just the impact of climate on sport. So obviously the the biggest example is the previous World Cup that had to be shifted from the summer to November, December, because it was far too hot to play in Qatar at the time to do that. Now we're seeing mandatory hydration breaks.
00:29:08
Speaker
you know, the World Cup final that's going to be played here in the the New York, New Jersey region will like to be the hottest World Cup ever played. given the temperatures that are expected. And it's likely that that will be the coolest World Cup in the future, given the impact of climate change. And and that's going to continue to change the game. And we could probably have a a whole conversation and podcast about what's the impact of hydration breaks on soccer and and what has that done to change the game. And I think this is a growing trend that you're seeing, whether it's you know having to shift the location of the marathon and race walking events in the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo,
00:29:43
Speaker
Or, you know, when they had to cancel the 2019 World Cup in Japan matches because there was a typhoon coming or ah the Estralian Open needed to shift because there are brush files and air pollution issues that sports no longer operate in a vacuum absent the environment around them. We're really lucky there's not a major wildfire for a whole host of reasons near any of the World Cup stadiums or regions that could cause issues for air quality that could cancel World Cups or shift us force them to shift. And I think that that is a trend that is emerging that I think will carry through with us of that long-term change of needing to pay much more attention to the heat or to other events that are occurring that could impact the World Cup. um
00:30:26
Speaker
That being said, I do think we've seen a lot of nice surprises from some competitions in the games that are coming, and I think, you know, while it's focused on some of the smaller countries, I think there's a parallel for cities of of don't count anyone out and that you know great things can come from unexpected and and smaller places. And I think that is also a city story that you know the cities are thriving. That's where innovation is happening. It's not just the largest cities and in most of the countries that that innovation and energy is being driven from. it It's any of the urban centers in the cities.
00:31:02
Speaker
That was Adam Freed, head of sustainability at Bloomberg Associates, who graciously made time for us while Brazil and Japan were deadlocked in the round of 32 in Texas. Signing off for Kit Magazine and Studio Santiago, Evan Howard.