With no air conditioning in the Olympic Village and few new stadiums, can the Paris Olympics be the "greenest" Games?
Interface News Reporter |
Interface News Editor |
At Pulse, the headquarters of the Olympic Games in Paris, carpets are second-hand, single-use plastic cutlery is banned in the canteen, a 300-square-meter roof is covered with solar panels, and employees are encouraged to use environmentally friendly transport. In the most recentReportedAnd in the picture, the Paris Olympic Village under construction has finally been unveiled - the athletes' rooms will not be equipped with air conditioning, but will use a cooling system. This has sparked widespread fears that Paris could be hit by a heatwave that could last for weeks during the Games.
The construction of an air-conditioned Olympic Village is just one way to reduce the carbon footprint of the Games, but it is partly a reflection of the goals of the organizers.Official informationThe goal of the Paris Olympics is to halve the carbon footprint of the Games compared to previous editions (the previous Olympics emitted an average of 3.5 million tons of carbon dioxide). France 24 TVReportedThis is less than the emissions of the last Tokyo Olympics, which emitted 1.9 million tonnes of carbon dioxide despite the pandemic.
In addition, in previous Olympic Games, the carbon footprint was calculated after the event, but the Paris Olympics took a different approach, which was to calculate the emissions of policy decisions before they were formulated and implemented. The "carbon budget" is divided into three different categories: travel (34%), construction (33%), and operations (catering, accommodation, logistics, etc., 33%). At the same time, Paris' ability to use existing infrastructure to host events has reduced emissions compared to previous Games. Almost all (95%)Olympic venuesAll of them have already been built: the Stade de France, which hosted the athletics competition, was built for the 1998 FIFA World Cup, the Parc des Princes, which hosted the 1984 Euro finals, and the Palace of Versailles, which was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1979.
On energy and pollution, the Paris Olympics have launched a huge energy project, with the Organising Committee looking to connect all Olympic venues to the public grid and abolish diesel power generation. For example, the lighting at the Stade de France is now powered by oil-fired generators, which will be the last option for the Olympics and will be replaced by biofuels. The Organising Committee estimates that this seemingly small measure will save as much as 13,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions. Pollution and the circular economy are also on the minds of organisers, according to Georgina Grenon, the "director of environmental excellence" at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, which will recycle 42,000 chairs, 10,000 desks, 6,000 bookshelves and 800 workstations used during the Games, of which three-quarters will be resold or donated, and the rest will be recycled or reused to make other products.
But preparations for the Paris Olympics have drawn criticism from some environmentalists. One example is the installation of the Aubervilliers Community Garden to accommodate the Olympic swimming pool. Built in 1930, the Aubervilliers Community Garden place is ideally located just two minutes from the nearest metro station and is tended by a gardener all year round. From a management point of view, it is divided into two parts, the part belonging to the municipality of Aubervilliers is planned for the construction of the Olympic swimming pool. Some environmentalists believe that since France already has dozens of Olympic swimming pools across the country, there is no need for this green space to be destroyed.
In addition, the construction of the Media Village in Seine-Saint-Denis required the laying of 7 hectares (about 70,000 square meters) of park land and the cutting down of 40-year-old trees, both of which are considered serious threats to biodiversity by conservationists. Perhaps the biggest problem is traffic, though. Alexandre Joly, an energy and climate expert, said Paris had worked hard to build as many competition venues as possible within a 10-kilometre radius of the Olympic Village and to ensure that all venues were accessible by public transport, "but this would not solve the problem of transporting millions of spectators and athletes from all over the world". In addition, in order to avoid being questioned as "greenwashing" (an environmental term that declares one's commitment to environmental protection when in fact the opposite is true), as in Qatar's hosting of the "carbon-neutral" football World Cup, the Paris Olympics have taken a more low-key approach to publicity.
