This story is part of our series Climate, Sports, and Recreation, about the impacts of extreme weather chaos on kids’ sports, outdoor activities, and generally enjoying nature.
Two years ago in San Diego, Jessie Fleming, Captain of the Canadian National Soccer Team, was forced to compete against the U.S. Women’s National Team on a completely flooded pitch in heavy rain. “It was like playing a different game,” she recalls. Next month, on March 4, Team Canada will again play against the U.S. Women’s National Team—hopefully not under extreme weather conditions.
In addition to captaining the Canadian team, Jessie is an Olympian, Gold Medalist, three-time Canadian Player of the Year, and current star on the Portland Thorns in the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL). Throughout her career, she has spoken candidly about the ways that extreme weather and climate change have already impacted soccer at the highest level. They are impacting her personally too. During the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, she led the Canadian National Team to the gold-medal game just for it to be delayed 10 hours because of extreme heat and unsafe playing conditions.
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Athletes are uniquely vulnerable to health impacts from climate-related severe weather, like extreme heat and storms. Playing games in high temperatures as well as on days with poor air quality leaves them at elevated risk for everything from heat stroke to asthma attacks to death. Extreme heat can worsen air pollution, adding to potential harm for athletes. Warmer weather traps greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and contributes to ground-level ozone, a key component of smog. Wildfire smoke, changing winters—which could impact the Olympics beginning next week in Milan—and flooding can also complicate professional sports. But not all athletes are speaking up like Jessie is about how global warming is impacting them personally—and the sport as a whole.
Personal impact inspires action
Jessie first made headlines for her climate advocacy several years ago when she boldly opted to offset the equivalent carbon emissions of her season’s travel via donations to climate resilience programs through the organization Common Goal. This was the largest-ever player-led climate initiative and was meant as a very public signal to the soccer world that climate action is crucial to the future, longevity, and accessibility of the sport. Rather than putting the onus on individual players, she hoped her gesture would spark systemic action and encourage a larger conversation about the dangers of climate-driven extreme weather. Jessie continues her advocacy with Common Goal with an ongoing donation of 1% of her salary toward their Football for Future initiative, which supports climate education work and soccer clubs seeking to become more environmentally focused.
She has continued to speak out about climate too, including at last fall’s New York Climate Week, where she joined a panel about the groundbreaking climate report Pitches in Peril. The report, released in advance of the upcoming 2026 World Cup, analyzes how rising heat, flooding, and drought will reshape the places soccer is played and contains data spanning 16 World Cup 2026 stadiums, future venues for 2030 and 2034, and 18 grassroots pitches. It’s intended to be a call to action for the soccer community to come together to protect the game for future generations.
Costs to players, fans, and leagues
Extreme weather impacts players’ health and well-being, but it also costs fans and leagues millions of dollars in ticket sales and television advertisements. “While in isolation this may not sound significant … I could probably list off 10 examples just from my professional career where important games have been affected by extreme weather,” Jessie says.
As climate-driven severe storms and heat continue to become more frequent and intense, players are put in the difficult position of having to advocate for themselves and often must go up against their league or soccer federation’s financial interests just to ensure safe playing conditions. This isn’t the only time that female athletes have been forced to become advocates, though. Whether it’s for safe playing conditions, pay equity, racial justice, or LGBTQ+ rights, advocacy seems to run in some players’ veins. With Jessie leading the way in advance of the 2027 Women’s World Cup, climate action will hopefully become the next era of athlete-driven advocacy. According to her, “women’s soccer has always been a space where people speak out about societal issues, and I think that will continue to be the case.”
Young athletes now have a role model in Jessie to look up to whether they’re passionate about sports, the environment, or advocacy. Or all three. She says, “Any interaction with a fan or young player—it reminds me that I want to leave the game in a better place for them.”
Learn more about how climate-driven extreme weather is impacting youth sports in our fact sheet.
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