THE CLIMATE COUNCIL is calling for Aussie sports to ditch their polluting fossil fuel sponsors after Tennis Australia dumped oil and gas giant Santos, a year into what was meant to be a multi-year sponsorship.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/strong>Almost 12 months after some of the nation\u2019s most high profile athletes, including Australian Cricket Captain Pat Cummins, called for greater climate action<\/a>, the Climate Council has welcomed the decision to cut ties with the fossil fuel industry from one of Australia\u2019s biggest sporting events.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong>Australia\u2019s summer of sport is under threat from climate change, which is being driven by the burning of coal, oil and gas. Recent examples include:<\/p>\n Dr Martin Rice, the Climate Council’s Director of Research, said:<\/p>\n \u201cSantos is a huge contributor to climate change, and yet it\u2019s sponsoring some of our most beloved sports including Rugby Australia and the Santos Tour Down Under, the largest cycle race in the southern hemisphere that is taking place right now in South Australia.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong>\u201cOther fossil fuel sponsored sporting codes must take note of this move by Tennis Australia and kick fossil fuel-backed companies into touch. Sporting clubs and codes can also rapidly cut their own greenhouse gas emissions by changing the way they build venues, power events, travel and by cutting waste.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFossil fuel companies sponsoring our sporting events, from a professional to community level, makes as much sense as if they were being supported by the tobacco industry. We ditched tobacco sponsorship in sport, now we need to do the same for polluting coal, oil and gas companies, which are driving worsening climate change and putting the future of sports at risk.\u201d<\/p>\n Australian sport is worth $50 billion to the economy and employs over 220,000 people, but governments are ill prepared for escalating climate risks. You can learn more about how climate change is affecting sport in Australia and how it can also be a powerful force for change in the Climate Council\u2019s \u2018Game, Set, Match\u2019 report<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" THE CLIMATE COUNCIL is calling for Aussie sports to ditch their polluting fossil fuel sponsors after Tennis Australia dumped oil and gas giant Santos, a year into what was meant to be a multi-year sponsorship. \u00a0Almost 12 months after some of the nation\u2019s most high profile athletes, including Australian Cricket Captain Pat Cummins, called for … Continue reading “Tennis Australia Drops Santos: Other Codes Must Follow Suit”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aussie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14580\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n