In socially influential fields such as elite sport, music, and film, cultural relevance is often invoked as a special moral status that exempts them from genuine emissions reduction. We argue that visibility and influence should raise, not lower, the bar for climate responsibility, and identify advocacy leverage points to advance action in these sectors. At a press conference in Liverpool, a football official defended a 33-min flight to protect players’ recovery1.
Global entertainers with the highest private jet mileage, each generating more than 4000 tonnes of CO₂ within half a year, include Floyd Mayweather, Jay-Z, Blake Shelton, Steven Spielberg, and Kim Kardashian2. Meanwhile, global film production is at an all-time high, and mega-events such as the FIFA World Cup and Olympic Games continue to expand, with more teams, matches, and infrastructure transported across the globe3,4,5,6. These examples show that fields with a strong cultural presence, such as elite sports, music, and film, are far from addressing the climate crisis with the urgency that its scale demands.
Instead, their practices are defended through different discourses of climate delay, including invoking their social importance, taking the current system for granted, or shifting responsibility to other actors such as fans7,8,9,10. We describe this dynamic as cultural exceptionalism in climate action: the implicit claim advanced by high-carbon-emission actors in these fields that their social and cultural value exempts them from climate mitigation. The term applies the general literature on climate delay discourses11 to describe a specific trend observed within culturally significant sectors7.
What makes these sectors distinctive is not the absolute size of their emissions but the scale of their per capita footprint and their societal relevance3,12. Elite sport, music, and film derive legitimacy from publicly visible cultural influencers: athletes, musicians, and actors. By “cultural influencers”, we mean people whose professional activities in a cultural field earn them broad public visibility and admiration.
As admiration often invites emulation, they have a unique ability to shape their audiences’ behavior, norms and values13,14. Thus, these influencers’ behavior shapes social norms far beyond their direct share of emissions12,15: In total tonnes of CO₂, these cultural sectors are relatively minor; in cultural reach and per capita emissions, they are giants. The elite sports sector is not denying the reality of climate change.
However, its climate responses are overwhelmingly framed in terms of adaptation, ensuring that existing practices can continue and competitions can proceed largely unchanged16. Examples of climate adaptation include air conditioning indoor facilities, artificially producing snow, rescheduling competitions to ensure “snow security”, adapting venues to potential flooding in coastal areas, or shifting the timing of events and breaks to avoid extreme heat17. In contrast, the sports sector also advances discourses that delay climate action to defend the status quo7.
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