The World Cup may be great for planet soccer, but it isn't so good for planet Earth.

 

Soccer's world governing body, FIFA, says the 2014 tournament, which will require huge amounts of air travel to venues across Brazil, will produce the equivalent of 2.72 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas.

 

That means staging the month long tournament will produce as much carbon dioxide as 560,000 passenger cars do in one year, according to the greenhouse gas calculator on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's website.

 

In an effort to curb pollution, FIFA will finance such projects as planting trees, which help reduce carbon emissions. FIFA's head of corporate social responsibility, Federico Addiechi, said in an interview that the ruling body will be spending several million dollars.

 

Teams, spectators, officials and others will have to crisscross the world's fifth-largest country, mostly by air, because the 64 World Cup matches are scattered across 12 stadiums.

 

Fans will produce about 90 percent of World Cup carbon emissions, Addiechi said. The rest — about 251,000 tons — is directly from FIFA activity. That includes travel for teams, referees, FIFA officials, carbon produced by their hotels, the use of stadiums and other tournament-related activities.

 

However, Addiechi said, "We're going to offset 100 percent of those emissions". That could be done by financing reforestation in Brazil, wind farms, hydroelectric plants or other projects. The projects will be announced next year. Addiechi said they will cost FIFA about $2.5 million, which is still just a fraction of the billions expected in World Cup revenue.