Qatar to count emissions from World Cup shuttle flights

World Cup host nation Qatar said Tuesday it will count emissions produced from daily flights ferrying fans during the tournament between the Gulf emirates toward the event’s overall carbon footprint.

Qatar claims the monthlong tournament kicking off Sunday will be “carbon neutral,” but environmental experts have questioned how rigorous its plan to count and offset all the event's emissions is.

There had been questions in recent months when airliners including Qatar Airways and FlyDubai said they would increase the number of daily flights between Doha and nearby Gulf cities to transport thousands of fans spending the night outside Qatar.

The host nation is smaller than the U.S. state of Connecticut and does not have enough hotel rooms to accommodate the tournament's more than 1.2 million expected fans.