The world around us in 2021 is a constant reminder of climate change. Chennai, no stranger to the North East Monsoon, has already received generational rainfall in November that’s comparable to historic records. The city, like every other metropolis situated on the coast across the world, runs the risk of sinking because of the rise in sea level.
One way to try and prevent it is building a more sustainable future by slowly weaning the world off fossil fuel. That’s what the the 2021 edition of the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 26) — held in Glasgow from Oct 31 to Nov 12 — hoped to do. One person who actively contributed to spreading the ills of climate change in Glasgow was Joe Cooke, a Glamorgan all-rounder. The 24-year-old is one of the very few professional cricketers to have taken an active interest in a sustainable future. Cooke spoke to this daily about his experience at COP 26 and more.
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A bit about your work at Glamorgan and when did you decide to go down this path?
I became interested in climate change at university where I studied Natural Science. When I started playing for Glamorgan, I wanted to carry on this passion so I started volunteering for ‘Friends of the Earth Cymru (dedicated to protecting environment and promoting sustainability in Wales) in my spare time. Now, I’m the ‘Sustainability Champion’ at Glamorgan. It’s still early days but I’m really excited about this role. Glamorgan already do a lot to reduce the impact we have on the environment, like selling reusable cups. But there is so much more to do and I’m confident I can help us to do more throughout the whole business. We’re just discovering what our environmental footprint looks like and then we’ll be putting measures in place to drastically reduce it. It’s really exciting and I can’t wait to make a positive difference. Glamorgan are as excited as I am, which is really important.
Your dissertation while at Durham University was ‘Cricket’s relationship with Climate Change’. What were your main findings from the literature?
Firstly, I decided to choose cricket’s relationship with climate change because I was constantly being reminded of how the weather was affecting the sport I love — rainy days and erratic weather meant play was affected a lot and I knew it would only get worse. My dissertation discovered just how volatile the climate would become. For example, in India, an increase in the likelihood, intensity and duration of heatwaves has been predicted. This will affect cricket, as players may be unable to play for long periods of time if the heat gets too much but also drought will impact the pitches. Also in India, monsoons are predicted to become more variable, with normal monsoon years declining and severe weak or strong monsoons becoming more common. Again, leading to erratic conditions that could affect our sport. The uncertainty is what is very scary though, we are just not sure how the climate will react to all the greenhouse gas emissions we have released.
The ways through which cricket can change to become climate-conscious?
As with any sport, there’s loads that can be done to make cricket more sustainable. From reducing plastic consumption at grounds to planning tours and games so that travel is limited. Also, the energy consumed at grounds is a problem, so increasing energy efficiency and spending money to be powered by renewables is important. There are so many other ideas I have for Glamorgan so hopefully we can make an impact. Also, I think cricket can talk about this problem and put pressure on necessary organisations and governments to take action on climate crisis.
You were on one of the panels at COP 26. Your thoughts on sport’s responsibility towards setting a net-zero goal sometime in the near future?
I think sport is so powerful in influencing people and creating change and hopefully cricket can lead on this and start talking about the right things. I heard somewhere that the top 10 most followed people on Instagram are mostly sportspersons. So, it shows how far-reaching athletes’ influence is. People look up to a lot of athletes and it would be great to see a top sportsperson use their platform to try and initiate positive environmental change. It was great to see Rohit Sharma and Dinesh Karthik feature in a Sky Sports documentary about the climate crisis recently. I just hope any negative responses don’t deter these big names from doing more.