IOC & 50-Strong Team Of Olympic Athletes Send Video Appeal To World Leaders At Cop26

On 2 November, with a few days left of COP26 (the United National Climate Change conference), a team of more than 50 of the world’s best Olympic and Paralympic athletes joined forces to appeal to global governments and power brokers to create a healthy and safe planet in a film called ‘Dear World Leaders’.

The initiative was spearheaded by gold medal Team GB winning sailor Hannah Mills MBE and British rower Melissa Wilson who sought and gained the support of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Paralympic Committee (IPC). Both are string supporters of environmental causes and worked together to create the video as a message to all those attending the United National Climate Change conference in Glasgow from 31 October to 12 November.

Representing over 45 countries, the group of athletes – which includes tennis champion Andy Murray, Kenyan two-time Olympic champion and marathon record holder Eliud Kipchoge, Spanish basketballer and three-time Olympic medalist Paul Gasol, plus multiple gold medal winning wheelchair sprinter Hannah Cockroft MBE, make their powerful appeal in the ‘Dear Leaders of The World’ online video.

Each individual athlete has given their person support to the campaign and its powerful message calling on world leaders to deliver on climate action.

The objective is that the spot’s sentiment and message – which highlights the dedication of the world’s athletes to being the best – will reinforce the need for global powers to use their determination and skills to preserve and protect the planet.

‘Dear Leaders Of The World’ was posted across the IOC and IPC’s digital channels and amplified by most of the athletes featuring in the film.

“Sport has huge cultural and political influence. The platform athletes have and the support they receive from fans means we are in a key position to communicate about what matters,” said Mills. “We also believe that the qualities that athletes and sports cultivate are really important in terms of how we approach climate change: qualities like resilience, teamwork, courage, ambition to push boundaries, strategic thinking, staying focused under pressure.

“COP26 presents a massive opportunity for all the global leaders to up their climate commitments, which is essential if we’re going to avoid widespread and catastrophic climate impacts over the coming decades,” added Wilson (who admitted that the pair of them had been overwhelmed by the response from their fellow athletes when they asked them to take part). “We wanted world leaders to hear from some of Tokyo’s highest-profile athletes how much it matters that they are ambitious in what they set out to do, tapping into the human capacity to push limits in the face of adversity and come together to accomplish something beyond what we can do as individuals.”