According to the study, a quarter of all English football grounds could be subject to regular flooding, including Premier League clubs like Chelsea, West Ham and Southampton. Meanwhile, rising sea levels could threaten three of the courses that regularly stage the British Open golf championship.
And, in winter sports, of the 19 venues that have staged the Winter Olympics to date, only ten of them would be in a position to do so by 2050, because rising temperatures and snow melt would render them unsuitable.
Cricket will not be immune either. Temperatures in Australia, the West Indies and India are predicted to rise, with venues like Perth and Adelaide expecting a rise in the number of days when the thermometer exceeds 40 degrees centigrade to increase by as much as 60%.
The report makes clear that climatic changes have already had an impact on sporting events. The Rugby World Cup in Japan, for example in 2018 was disrupted by a typhoon that not only cost lives and cost millions of dollars worth of damage, but also meant that some fixtures had to be cancelled and others moved from their original location.
Earlier this year, the smoke from the raging Australian bushfires caused disruption at the Australia Tennis Open, which, in recent years, has regularly been affected by soaring temperatures as well. Similarly the US Open played at Flushing Meadows in New York has also been affected by heat, often combined with smog from the city’s traffic.
And, in 2015, Carlisle who play in Division Two of the English football league, were unable to play any of their home matches for a seven week period in the aftermath of Storm Desmond which struck the North-West of the country.
The report was commissioned by Rapid Transition Alliance, an international pressure group made up of academics and environmental campaigners who argue for a faster international response to climate change,