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Alex Lo

So much for the French summer Olympic Games being the “greenest ever”. That, at first, was how Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris and a green fanatic, had advertised the Games. But the world’s biggest sports event this year may turn out to be not very green.
Hidalgo’s experiment, which includes not offering air conditioning in the rooms of the athletes’ village, should be a textbook example of unintended consequences.
You may have read that Hong Kong organisers have been scrambling to collect and ship enough portable air-con units to accompany our athletes. But we are not the only ones. Teams from the mainland, Canada, Britain, Italy, Germany, Greece, Denmark and Australia are all doing the same.
As to complaints that some teams from low-income countries can’t afford to bring their own air-con units, French Olympic organisers relented early this month and will offer such units to any team that requests them. All this could have been foreseen because France has been hit by unusual heatwaves in recent years.

In an earlier report titled, “Rings of fire: heat risks at the 2024 Paris Olympics”, researchers from Britain’s University of Portsmouth, non-profit NGO Climate Central and 11 Olympians warned that conditions in Paris this summer could be worse than the last Games in Tokyo in 2021.
“[I]ntense heat at the Paris Olympics in July-August 2024 could lead to competitors collapsing and in worst-case scenarios dying during the Games,” the report said.
A study in the Lancet Planetary Health journal in May last year found that Paris had the highest heat-related death rates of 854 European towns and cities.
More than 5,000 people died in France as a result of searing summer heat last year when local highs reached above 40 degrees Celsius in some places. But air cons may be a lesser environmental challenge. Ice is a bigger one, according to an op-ed piece in the latest issue of the British Journal of Sports Medicine.
“The first estimation done by Paris 2024 based on the initial requests presented by the International Federations was 1,624 tons of ice, at a cost of €2.5 million (HK$21.2 million),” wrote the authors who formed a team of international researchers.

“No independent vendors were able to fulfil the public tender. Subsequently, this estimate has been reduced to 650 tons (450 for the Olympics and 200 for the Paralympics).”
By comparison, 22 tons of ice were delivered to the competition venues of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics for medical purposes. Another 42 tons were provided to accommodation in the Olympic Village, in part via ice-dispensing machines. In highly competitive sports, ice is commonly used to treat injuries, particularly soft tissue ones. This is despite insufficient medical evidence as to its longer-term efficacy.
The op-ed argues the amount of energy and water needed “to produce, store, and transport the ice” isn’t good for the planet, to say nothing of the cost. What is needed is not the ever increasing and indiscriminate use of ice at big-item sports events, but more economical use along with better medical treatment and first aid.
“Ice usage at the Summer Olympics has reached extraordinary levels, potentially stressing local and regional resources,” the article concludes.
“The sport and exercise medicine community needs better data on the actual amount of ice consumed at major sporting events, for what purposes, and at what financial and environmental costs. When planning for the provision of ice, organisers should aim to minimise the use of non-evidence-based practices and promote better sustainability.”
So Hidalgo might have been barking up the wrong tree. When asked about her fanatical stance against air cons, she told radio station France Info early last year: “I have a lot of respect for the comfort of athletes, but I think a lot more about the survival of humanity.”
Her answer was so French. Maximilien Robespierre said something similar about his love of humanity while he kept sending people to the guillotine.


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My Take

France’s ‘greenest ever’ Olympics may turn out to be the least green

China’s Li Wenwen celebrates in the women’s +87kg weightlifting competition during the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. Researchers warn that heat conditions in Paris this summer could be worse than they were during the last Games. Photo: AFP

The Olympic Rings are displayed on the Eiffel Tower in Paris ahead of the opening of the 2024 Olympic Games. Photo: EPA-EFE

A pharmacy displays the temperature, 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit) in Lille, northern France, during an extreme European heatwave in July 2022. Photo: AP

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People pose for photos with the Olympic rings in Paris ahead of the opening ceremony for the Summer Games. Photo: Kyodo

The Olympic rings, proudly displayed on the Eiffel Tower, are made of recycled steel. These Games strive to be the greenest yet, with a carbon footprint half the size of that for the London Olympics in 2012. Photo: EPA-EFE

Swimmer Siobhan Haughey and fencer Cheung Ka-long are the favourites to strike gold for Hong Kong at the Paris Summer Olympic Games. Photo: Handout

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Security guard Hakim in the Hall of Mirrors in the Palace of Versailles will be one of many unseen French workers welcoming 11 million tourists to Paris. Photo: AFP

Most of the 10,500 athletes in Paris stay at the Olympic Village in the suburb of Saint-Denis. Photo: Reuters

100,000 spectators will pay to sit in the stands on the banks of the Seine to watch the opening. Photo: AP

Paris 2024 organising committee head Tony Estanguet tries the food in the Olympic Village. Organisers say 80 per cent of the food will be produced in France. Photo: AFP

Opinion

Paris’ mayor has relented after initially ruling out air cons for athletes’ village, but excessive ice use risks damaging environment even more


Paris’ mayor has relented after initially ruling out air cons for athletes’ village, but excessive ice use risks damaging environment even more.


France’s ‘greenest ever’ Olympics may turn out to be the least green

.css-1mniedq{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;}Paris’ mayor has relented after initially ruling out air cons for athletes’ village, but excessive ice use risks damaging environment even more

Paris’ mayor has relented after initially ruling out air cons for athletes’ village, but excessive ice use risks damaging environment even more