Green Olympics advances in Paris

Why didn’t the Paris Olympics dare to mention “carbon neutrality” despite not installing air conditioners and asking athletes to eat more vegetarian food?

Paris no longer claims to be a "carbon-neutral" Olympics, but instead returns its goal to reality, that is, to become the Olympics with the lowest carbon emissions.

The century-old Olympic Games are now part of the global climate ambitions. Every Olympic Games since the 1994 Lillehammer Winter Olympics has included environmental protection in its management goals; the International Olympic Committee plans to achieve carbon neutrality, or net zero carbon emissions, for all future Olympic Games.

Paris, which is about to host the Olympic Games for the third time, is working hard to lead the Olympic Games to a higher level of green. To this end, the Paris Olympic Organizing Committee has formulated a number of groundbreaking measures, including not installing air conditioning in the Olympic Village, providing more vegetarian food to athletes, and 95% of the venues are not new fixed buildings.

However, due to some doubts about some carbon reduction measures, Paris and the International Olympic Committee did not explicitly propose the goal of "carbon neutrality", but more pragmatically declared that they would host an Olympic Games with "the lowest carbon emissions".

Paris is a milestone city in the history of human response to climate change. The most important climate treaty in the world, the Paris Agreement, was adopted at the 21st United Nations Climate Change Conference, also known as the Paris Climate Conference, on December 12, 2015. The goal of the Paris Agreement is to limit the increase in global average temperature to within 2 degrees Celsius compared with the pre-industrial period, and strive to limit it to within 1.5 degrees Celsius. The core path to achieve this goal is to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

The Paris Agreement was formulated on the basis of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. In June 1992, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development first proposed to address the concentration of atmospheric greenhouse gases (mainly carbon dioxide), and 153 countries and regional integration organizations signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change at this conference. The International Olympic Committee sent representatives to attend the meeting, and thus began to incorporate the concept of climate change into the Olympic Games.

The International Olympic Committee has now become an observer organization of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and has set its own climate goals: a 30% reduction in carbon emissions by the end of 2024 and a 50% reduction by 2030. On March 4, 2020, the International Olympic Committee Executive Committee passed a resolution to ensure that all upcoming Olympic Games are carbon neutral and promised to significantly reduce the carbon footprint of the events.

The 2012 London Olympics was a landmark node in the history of the Green Olympics. It was the first Olympic Games to accurately calculate and measure the carbon emissions of a single Olympic Games.

In December 2009, the London Organizing Committee released the "London 2012 Sustainable Development Plan", which measured the carbon emissions generated during the entire London Olympic cycle (2005-2012) and concluded that the carbon emissions of the entire Olympic Games were about 3.4 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, of which 50% were from the development and construction of event venues, 17% from transportation infrastructure, 13% from operations, and 20% from on-site spectator-related emissions.

Compared with the London Olympics, the climate goals of the Paris Olympics go further: carbon emissions are reduced by 50% compared with the average level of the 2012 London and 2016 Rio Olympics, and efforts are made to control them within 1.5 million tons of carbon dioxide. At the same time, the carbon emissions calculated by the Paris Olympics are the first in the history of the Olympic Games to include indirect carbon emissions in Scope 3, such as carbon emissions generated by spectator travel.

According to the more recognized Greenhouse Gas Protocol, there are three categories when calculating carbon emissions: direct emissions from buildings and vehicles are Scope 1, indirect emissions from energy purchased from utilities are Scope 2, and indirect emissions related to operations and supply chains are Scope 3.

The International Olympic Committee said that Paris is the first Olympic Games in line with the Paris Agreement, and it has set strict carbon budgets from buildings to energy and transportation, catering and procurement.

Among the venues for the Paris Olympics, 95% are pre-existing or temporary buildings, and new buildings are built using low-carbon construction methods.

The only newly built venue for the Paris Olympics is the Saint-Denis Olympic Aquatics Center, which embodies the concept of carbon reduction everywhere: it has the world's largest suspended roof made entirely of wood, with 5,000 square meters of photovoltaic power generation components installed on the roof, which can provide 20% of the electricity consumed on site. All furniture in restaurants, bars and entrances is made of wood waste from construction sites and other nearby demolition sites. All spectator seats are made of 100% recycled plastic collected from local schools.

Another major measure for reducing carbon emissions in Paris Olympic buildings is not to install air conditioners in the Olympic Village where athletes live. In order to cool down, light-colored floor tiles are laid in the rooms of the Olympic Village to enhance light reflection and avoid the heat island effect. A geothermal cooling system is also used to pump cold water into the apartments to achieve a temperature difference of 6 to 10 degrees Celsius between indoors and outdoors. In addition, one-third of the roofs of the Olympic Village buildings are equipped with photovoltaic power generation components, and another third have roof gardens, which can help cool the buildings.

Although this practice has been questioned by the Olympic Committees of many countries, the Paris Olympic Committee has made up its mind. In order to achieve the low-carbon goal, athletes at this Olympics will be the first to sacrifice comfort for climate change.

In terms of transportation, the Paris Olympic Committee will reduce the number of vehicles used and encourage athletes and spectators to use public transportation during the Olympics. In addition, 3,000 additional pay-as-you-go bicycles will be provided to spectators and related persons.

The Paris Olympic Games meals have also made efforts to reduce carbon emissions. The Paris Olympic Committee has doubled the proportion of plant ingredients in the meals and increased everyone's plant choices, including a variety of fruits, vegetables, beans and whole grains.

At the same time, 80% of the raw materials for the Olympic meals come from local agricultural production, and a quarter of the ingredients are within 250 kilometers of the production area. These measures can make the carbon emissions of the Paris Olympic Games meals only half of the ordinary French meals.