Ladakh’s Climate Cup aims to serve as an alarm bell, and an example

The football tournament targets single-use plastic, promotes local fabrics and serves only local foods. The cup is wooden and was made locally too.

Mohmad Ilyas, 34, has been tossing the ball up, down and around the slopes of Kargil since he was six.

Playing football, at about 11,000 ft above sea level with low atmospheric pressure, has always been hard, he admits. “But in the past five years, it has become even more challenging,” says the member of the Leh-based football club 1 Ladakh FC.

The reason: increased air pollution and heat, and altered atmospheric pressure and wind patterns.

Last July, the cold