Sport and climate: Ladakh’s themes for the times

Mountaineering may not fall into the description of competitive sport but after Skalzang Rigzin spoke at the Climate 11 Summit in Leh, it didn’t matter. This summer Rigzin became the first Indian to climb Mount Annapurna without supplementary oxygen and the first Indian civilian to do so on Mount Everest. Ignoring all those descriptors, he introduced himself as a mountain guide, recounting what he had seen while setting ropes on Ladakh’s mountains in August. A glacier that he had passed on the way up a few weeks earlier had turned into a mountain stream and the temperature read 29 degrees. At 5500ft. Rigzin’s words were a whiplash –confirming what is Asia’s first conference of the impact of climate change on sport and sustainability was held where its effects are being felt the hardest.
Ever since its October 2019 reorganisation as a Union Territory, Ladakh has aimed to follow through on its mission of becoming a rare carbon neutral Indian region. Post-Covid, its engagement with sport, particularly football has aimed utilising the sector as both medium and message. Ladakh UT’s secretary sports tourism and power, Vikram Malik said, “A lot of people in Ladakh were talking about climate change… last year the idea was to integrate both themes sport and climate, which meant the reach of its audience would increase multiple times.”
The first Climate 11 summit was a fresh offshoot of that 2023 sport and sustainability mission. The first Climate Cup last year had featured four teams headlined by the region’s first professional club, 1Ladakh FC. Six including two from outside the region turned up in 2024: eventual winners I League club Gokulam Kerala FC’s first squad (minus its foreign players) and the ISL’s North East United reserves.
The tournament was held in the Spituk Open Stadium, which has to be one of Indian football’s most atmospheric venues – not only because it is situated at 11,000 feet. Ringed by towering hills and distant snow-covered peaks, with Spituk Monastery as stern, stark guardian, the ground runs parallel to the Leh airstrip. The Climate Cup was played in the backdrop of IAF helicopter sorties and take-offs and landings by commercial flights. What was as astonishing and endaring that while the ground has not formally been inaugurated, the sport has not stopped, nor has the public has not been kept away from Leh’s rare patch of green.
In keeping with its green mission, there was no plastic at the Climate Cup venue, teams travelled in battery-fuelled buses, everyone carrying a personal sipper for water. Drink and food were served to guests in glass bottles, paper cups and ceramic plates. Local vendors came in at one go, carrying tea, both salted and sweet and vegetable-stuffed momos and khambir. After serving the spectators, they left carrying used utensils or packing paper containers away into garbage bags.
Climate Cup champions get to keep their trophy for good. Handmade from responsibly-sourced wood, its design is inspired from one of Buddhism’s eight auspicious signs: the vase of treasure, symbolising health, abundance, longetivity with a football at its heart. There’s another delightful factoid about this elegant trophy: it was designed by a serving bureaucrat. Moses Kunzang was joint director youth services and sport/ co-operative societies, only recently transferred to director, urban local bodies.
The Spituk ground itself is a first in the region, football previously played on mud /sand patches, the five-a-side futsal version more popular in Ladakh. Tsering Angmo, general secretary of the Ladakh Football Association and co-founder of 1Ladakh FC is a rare high-ranked female Indian sports official. A former wushu fighter employed at the J&K Sports Council, previously in charge of the SAI football academy in Leh (on a patch of sand/mud flat), she grew up with brothers and cousins “dedicated” to football. “But they never got any chances to play for state or national level or Santosh Trophy – I always wanted a Ladakhi to play at a high, international level…”
This year her team, 1LadakhFC were the only ones who challenged Gokulam, pushing them all the way to penalties in the semi-finals before losing. Moments after the game, they got into a fight with Gokulam involving abuse, flying legs, arms and a red card. Regardless, 1Ladakh FC’s co-founder Shamim Meraj, also co-founder Real Kashmir FC, was pleased, “I am not surprised we took them all the way to penalties. There’s immense talent in Ladakh – unimaginable grit, determination. They just need more games, more exposure. Plus there’s also a cause to play for – climate – where everyone’s on the same team.”
The Climate11 (11 for a sports team) Summit held the day before the final made an international statement out of a domestic Indian football game. David Goldblatt, the world’s foremost authority on climate change and sport, addressed the Leh audience online from California. He said that while sport was both victim and contributor of global warming, it was also a powerful cultural resource capable of exerting wide-ranging influence on climate action. Goldblatt pointed out that outside of Kenya Athletics, no organisation from the global south had signed the United Nations Sport for Climate Change framework and said that if the Climate11 could increase efforts to “bring India into that conversation – we will have done our bit.”
The Leh City Climate Action plan was also released during the Summit after which Piara Powar executive director of the UK-based Fare Network and a delegate at the conference said, “Ladakh can be the leader in creating and setting agendas for action around climate change in sport.” With 1Ladakh FC as mascot and moving part.
1Ladakh FC does not have to be a professional Indian football team like we know it. Instead, it could use what Meraj calls the “anti-season” — the region’s May to September high noon — with activities leading into India’s conventional football season. It is a sound plan: in May, the club goes out of region and country to spread the awareness about themselves, the Ladakh region and their roles in climate action. Return home to train and enter the Durand Cup, play host at the Climate Cup and move onto pre-season friendlies with I-League / ISL teams. The best among 1LFC get signed up by leagues or smaller divisions for the regular season and play 30 and 40 games. This calendar offers a sense of “continuity and reward” at the start of what are hoped to be long careers. With one among them, as Angmo still dreams, becoming the first Ladakhi to play for India.