How do you produce a global sporting event, with millions of people swooping down on one city, in the age of global warming?
That is the test for the Paris Olympics this summer. The organizers say they’re putting the games on a climate diet. These Olympics, they say, will generate no more than half the greenhouse gas emissions of recent Olympics. That means tightening the belt on everything that produces planet-warming emissions: electricity, food, buildings, and transportation, including the jet fuel that athletes and fans burn traveling the world to get there.
An event that attracts 10,500 athletes and an estimated 15 million spectators is, by definition, going to have an environmental toll. And that has led those who love the games but hate the pollution to suggest that the Olympics should be scattered around the world, in existing facilities, to eliminate the need for so much new construction and air travel. That’s why Paris is being watched so closely.
It is making more space for bikes and less for cars. It’s doing away with huge, diesel-powered generators, a fixture of big sporting events. It’s planning guest menus that are less polluting to grow and cook than typical French fare: more plants, less steak au poivre. Solar panels will float, temporarily, on the Seine.
But the organizers’ most significant act may be what they are not doing: They aren’t building. At least, not as much. Instead of building new showpieces for the games (which generates lots of greenhouse gas emissions from the manufacturing of concrete and steel), the Paris Olympics are repurposing many of the city’s existing attractions, including the Grand Palais, the plaza known as the Concorde and even a swimming pool built for the 1924 Paris Olympics.
It’s not without controversy. One notable emissions-reduction effort, a decision to forego conventional air-conditioning at the athletes’ village, has raised concerns. Instead, the buildings will rely on a cooling system that uses water pulled from underground. Several Olympic teams are considering bringing their own air-conditioners.
Still the hope is that experiments like these will offer a template for other Olympics in the future, and other cities worldwide. The few new buildings that are being built, including the athletes’ housing, as well as a swimming complex and an arena, are using less cement and more wood. They have solar panels and greenery on their roofs.
The new buildings are also meant to have a life far beyond the Olympics. They’re designed to be used by local residents for decades to come and, the leaders of the Paris 2024 organizing committee say, revitalize the city’s suburbs. “We set for ourselves ambitions that have never been set for any event before, let alone have this scale,” said Georgina Grenon, who is in charge of the games’ environmental efforts.
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