A study by an international team of researchers led by the University of Waterloo claims that climate change will limit where the Winter Olympics can be held as winter changes across the Northern Hemisphere.
The study, which involved researchers from Canada, Austria and the United States, found that if global emissions of greenhouse gases are not reduced, only one of the 21 cities that have previously hosted the Winter Olympics would be able to reliably provide fair and safe conditions for the snow sports program of the Games by the end of this century.
If the Paris Climate Agreement emission targets can be achieved, however, the number of climate-reliable host cities will jump to eight, with only six considered unreliable.
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Daniel Scott, a professor of Geography and Environmental Management at Waterloo, was quoted as saying that “the world of winter sport is changing as climate change accelerates, and the international athletes and coaches we surveyed are witnessing the impacts at competition and training locations, including the Olympics”.
To conduct the study, the researchers reviewed historical climate data from the 1920s to the present day and future climate change scenarios for the 2050s and 2080s. They also surveyed international athletes and coaches and found that 89 per cent felt changing weather patterns are affecting competition conditions, and 94 percent fear climate change will impact the future development of their sport.
Natalie Knowles, a PhD student and former Canadian elite skier who was involved in the study, said “we wanted to understand from the athlete’s perspective what climate and snow conditions made competition fair and safe, and then determine which Olympic hosts could provide those conditions in the future”.
Michelle Rutty of Waterloo’s Faculty of Environment, who was also involved in the study said that they studied the many ways the Winter Olympics has reduced weather risk since the first Games held in Chamonix, France nearly 100 years ago.
“But there are limits to what weather risk management strategies can cope with, and we saw those limits exceeded in Sochi and Vancouver, “he said.
