By Femi Akinola
The on-going 2024 Olympic Games taking place in France was hosting 15,000 athletes, 45,000 volunteers, and 26,000 media professionals who are in the country to cover sporting activities throughout the duration of the Olympic Games.
In the past week, Paris, the French capital, have been playing host to more than 10 million tourists including scouts for talents from different sporting games. This means a lot of air travel, and consequently, a lot of greenhouses gasses (GHG) emissions.
All evidence points to the earth planet of being in a climate emergency, driven by anthropogenic emissions of GHG. In this context, mega sporting events like the Olympic Games, with their massive carbon footprint, might appear to be profilgacy humanity can ill-afford.
Before the start of the Paris 2024 Olympic games, the organising committee pledged to reduce the Olympic carbom emissions from around 3.5 million tonnes in Tokyo (Japan) 2020, Rio (Brazil) 2016, and London (United Kingdom) 2012 to 1.75 tonnes this time around.
Paris 2024 is majorly powered by renewable energy sources like geothermal and solar power. A number of climate -friendly moves are being impemented.
First, on construction venues for the Olympics, unlike the 2012 Olympics in London where the organising committee built eight new venues, for the Games, and Tokyo 2020 which constructed 11 new sites, over 90% of events in the 2024 Olympic Gmes in Paris will hold in existing buildings or temporary infrastrucute.
The competition venue put in place by the Paris Games Organising Committee, the Aquatics Centre in Sain-Denis, is solar-powered, and recycled and natural bio-based builing material were used in constructing this venue. Globally, the construction industry is among the hioghest GHG emitters, responsible for 37% of global emissions.
Aside that, while the high temperatures in Paris forced organisers to install 2,500 temporary cooling units for athletes, the athletes’s living arangements are fairly sparse. Their mattresses are mde from recycled fishing nets, and beds made from reinforced cardboard.
Significant amount of the furniture used in the on-going Paris 2024 Olympic Games is rented, rther than bought, and will be put to reuse after the Olympics. The 2,800 new apartments in the Olympic Village has been penciled for conversion to people’s ho,mes after the event.
On food people consumed during the Games, organisers of the Paris 2024 try to promote plant-based, local and sustainable food. The Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) estimted that the meat and dairy industries account for 18% global GHG emissions. All food-related infrastructure developed for the Games willbe reuse after the Olympics.
On transportation during the Games, most venues are accessible without stress by publictransport. Prior to the kick-off of the Games on Friday, Paris has been running of special services to ensure that tourists do not encounter any trouble moving and getting around.
In addition, Paris developed 1,000 km of dedicated cycle lanes, with an additional 3,000 pay-as-you-go cycles available for rent during the Games.
The organisers of this Games have said that Paris 2024 has ”developed a funding programme for projects aimed at avoiding and capturing carbon emissions, which will aim to offset unavoidable Games-related emissions.”
Offsetting is a way for individuals or organisations to ”compensate” for the environmental costs of their actions by funding projects which will plant trees, rejuvenate forests, etc.
