In SportingIntelligence By Roger Pielke, Jr. on July 29, 2014

Over the weekend, British deputy prime minister Nick Clegg told the Sunday Times that Russia should be stripped of the 2018 World Cup. Clegg joins several senior German politicians in calling for the next World Cup to be moved as a sanction against Russia for its role in the continuing conflict in the Ukraine. The renewed calls for sanctions have been prompted by the shooting down of Malaysian Airlines 17 over eastern Ukraine, allegedly by Russian-supported Ukrainian separatists.

Does FIFA have a responsibility to engage in global geopolitics? Its history and actions say yes.

Yet FIFA’s first reaction to calls for stripping Russia of the World Cup prompted FIFA on July 25th to issue a “Statement on Russia 2018.” In it FIFA rejected calls to revisit the 2018 World Cup hosting decision: “History has shown so far that boycotting sport events or a policy of isolation or confrontation are not the most effective ways to solve problems.” FIFA continues: “We have seen that the FIFA World Cup can be a force for good and FIFA believes this will be the case for the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia.”

Yet, FIFA’s reading of history is not quite right. Decisions about football competitions based on political considerations, including international sanctions, have a rich history. Just two weeks ago the UEFA Emergency Committee decided that no Champions League or Europa Cup matches are to be played in Ukraine or Israel. These decisions were based on concerns about the ongoing conflicts.  Another decision was made “in light of the current political situation,” with UEFA deciding that teams from Russia and Ukraine will not be allowed to face each other in the international competitions.  Read more…

photo by Alvesgaspar in Wikipedia Commons

By Roger Pielke, Jr. in The Guardian on July 24, 2014

A coalition of environmental NGOs is calling for the post of Europe’s chief scientist to be axed. Roger Pielke Jr explains why this is a misguided and shortsighted proposal.

On Tuesday, a group of European health and environmental NGOs sent a letter to the president-elect of the European commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, urging him to “scrap” the position of chief scientific adviser to the president of the Commission, a role currently held by Professor Anne Glover. On seeing this demand, my thoughts immediately turned to Richard Nixon.

More than 40 years ago, US president Richard Nixon abolished the president’s council of advisers on science and technology. He also transferred the role of presidential science adviser to the National Science Foundation, far away from the White House. Nixon took these actions because he was unhappy that many of his science advisers opposed the Vietnam War, anti-ballistic missile defence and supersonic transport.

The European NGOs calling for the abolishment of the chief scientific adviser, which include Greenpeace, are taking a page right out of Nixon’s playbook. Don’t like the science advice you are getting? Then fire your science adviser. Or better yet, abolish the position altogether so that you’ll never need to hear unwelcome advice in the future.

Who do the NGOs think should be advising the commission’s president? Themselves of course. As their letter says: “We hope that you as the incoming commission president will decide not to nominate a chief scientific adviser and that instead the commission will take its advice from a variety of independent, multi-disciplinary sources, with a focus on the public interest.” Read more…

A world sport needs organising body that upholds highest standards.  By Roger Pielke, Jr. in the Financial Times on July 12, 2014

Fifa has long been plagued by scandal. In the coming days, it is expected to announce the results of an investigation into bribery allegations surrounding its decision to hold the tournament in Qatar in 2022. History would tell us not to expect much. With the World Cup over, attention moves on.

It should not. Football is a global phenomenon that cuts across business, politics and culture. A world sport needs an organising body that upholds the highest standards of governance.

Based in Switzerland, founded in 1904, and ostensibly a not-for-profit organisation, Fifa has maintained what Mark Pieth – who until recently chaired an internal reform effort – has described as the structure of a gentleman’s club. It is not too much of an exaggeration to compare Fifa to a neighbourhood association or bird watching club. Except that these organisations probably have far greater legal accountability than Fifa.

The Swiss body’s power arises because 209 football associations around the world have chosen to associate with the organisation and to participate in its immensely popular and lucrative competitions. This year’s World Cup is expected to generate $4.5bn in revenue. Fifa executives share out this largesse among the 209 FAs, which in turn are collectively responsible for securing the tenure of those same executives.

Fifa has no external board of directors, and its official guidelines stipulate that its president must come from within the ranks of the organisation. One could scarcely imagine circumstances more likely to produce nepotism, conflicts of interest, and political patronage.

Fifa has become impervious to change. True, it has powerful partners – the governments who host its tournaments, and the sponsors who bankroll them to the tune of billions of dollars – which in theory should be able to hold it to account.

In practice they do not. Several sponsors have publicly expressed concerns about the vortex of allegations swirling around the organisation. But they rarely act decisively in times of crisis.

In November 2012 Emirates Airlines voiced its scepticism about the course of Fifa’s reform efforts. About a month later a senior vice president at the airline concluded: “We have now done a market research test and so far it would seem there is no negative effect on our brand or people’s perception of it, whatever Fifa has gone through.” In other words, when profits suffer, perhaps we will act.

The fact that people care far more about referees’ efforts to uphold the rules on the pitch than about the governance of the game itself has allowed the “gentleman’s club” approach to survive so long.

If sponsors will not act unless they see a threat to the bottom line, governments at least should be more forceful. US authorities played a role in holding the International Olympic Committee accountable to reforms following the Salt Lake City scandal.

However, that case appears to be an exception. Aside from some initial explorations into Fifa governance by the Council of Europe and the European Commission, only a few passionate MPs in the UK, Germany and a few other places have shown any zest for helping Fifa to reform.

In an academic paper published last year, I addressed the question, to whom is Fifa accountable? The answer that I reached was that “Fifa sits free from the formal mechanisms of accountability that are employed to hold international organisations to accountability.”

The world is stuck with Fifa president Sepp Blatter, who is standing for a fifth term as he approaches 80, and a Fifa which falls well short of the sort of governance that we have come to expect in most important, global organisations. This sorry state of affair will remain until governments and business take more seriously the governance of football.

photo by Agencia Brasil

Protect America with structural integrity, Roger Pielke, Jr., June 9, 2014

In 1933, Richard Gray, a U.S. government weather forecaster, noted that Florida had been hit by at least 37 hurricanes over the 45 years ending in 1930. During this period, the longest stretch with no tropical storms was only two years.

When the 2014 hurricane season officially began on June 1, the Sunshine State had gone more than eight years without being struck by a hurricane. It was back on Oct. 24, 2005, when Hurricane Wilma emerged from the Gulf of Mexico and caused billions of dollars in damage in South Florida. In fact, Wilma was the last Category 3 or stronger storm to hit the USA.

The 3,151 days and counting with no Florida hurricane and no major U.S. hurricane shatters the previous records for hurricane “droughts,” at least back to the turn of the previous century. In fact, from 1900 through 2013, the United States experienced a decrease in hurricane landfalls of more than 20%, and the strength of each year’s landfalling storms has also decreased by more than 20%.

Seasons highly variable

Even so, I’d caution against putting too much significance on these numbers, as North Atlantic hurricane seasons are highly variable. In fact, the choice of time period makes a difference. For instance, starting the analysis in 1970, at the lowest point of 20th century hurricane activity, leads to an increasing trend. Read more…

Technology, not carbon tax, will reduce emissions by Roger Pielke Jr. on June 3, 2014

Carbon emissions are the product of growth in gross domestic product and of the technologies of energy consumption and production. More precisely, this relationship is called the Kaya Identity – after Yoichi Kaya, the Japanese scientist who first proposed it in the 1980s. Read More….

Photo by Ian Briton