“the impact” of international travel by visitors will prevent the carbon footprint of the Games from being halved, according to the Les Shifters association

The Organizing Committee for the Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games wanted to halve greenhouse gas emissions, compared to the previous editions in London and Rio. But the objective will not be achieved, according to calculations by an association which supports the energy transition of European countries.

Impossible mission ? Greenhouse gas emissions caused by the Paris 2024 Olympic Games will not be halved as planned, concludes a report published Thursday June 20. The authors, Paul Delanoë and Alexis Lepage, are members of the Les Shifters association, within which volunteers support the think tank The Shift Project, specialist in energy transition. They recall that the Organizing Committee for the Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games (Cojop) had set this climate objective “very ambitious”.

If the Paris 2024 Games are moving towards “the lowest carbon footprint, in particular thanks to the choice to build only a tiny part of the infrastructure necessary for the competition”, the objective “to divide by two” greenhouse gas emissions compared to the Games in London in 2012 and Rio in 2016 will not be achieved, according to the authors of the report. Paul Delanoë and Alexis Lepage emphasize that the travel of spectators, who will come from all over the world to Paris to attend the Games, increases the carbon footprint, particularly if they take the plane. They point to the absence of“concrete action aimed at reducing the impact of international travel”.

“The travel of international visitors alone this summer to go to the Paris Games should generate around 1.1 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent”, according to their calculations, detailed in the report. By adding national travel to these emissions, “carbon impact” travel could even exceed 1.2 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent, according to Paul Delanoë and Alexis Lepage. “This is more than twice the carbon budget announced by Paris 2024 for its travel component”and this represents “more than two-thirds of the total carbon budget set by the organizers”they estimate.

To arrive at this figure, they notably went through numerous documents, in order to “find the number of European and non-European spectators”. The two authors, who detail their methodology in their report, also compared the carbon footprints presented for the London Olympics and extrapolated the number of tickets sold per country (+10%) between London 2012 and Paris 2024.

“There is still a long way to go to claim that the event is ‘sustainable'”point out the authors of the report, who formulate proposals to achieve this during future events, including the sale of tickets to local spectators and neighboring countries, for travel “less carbon-intensive”. Their flagship measure is “the establishment of decentralized fan zones”, “managed by the organizing country and located on different continents in order to welcome new visitors traveling over shorter distances”. “To transit, the Games need a low-carbon, profitable and desirable solution. This is what the decentralized fan zone model aims to move towards”they insist.

The Shifters’ methodology is questioned by Cojop. The report “has chosen to use data from the London 2012 edition as the sole reference, and to include the arrival of visitors without tickets in its calculation”object the organizers, cited by The Team. Conversely, “the estimate of the carbon footprint of Paris 2024 is based on the arrival of visitors directly attributable to the Games, therefore spectators with tickets”. “The number of ticketed spectators in Ile-de-France is estimated between 2.3 and 3.1 million, two thirds of whom are French”assures the committee. “The exact data concerning the number and geographical origin of spectators will be known once all tickets have been allocated”continues Cojop, which assures us: “An assessment will also be established after the Games.” In an interim report published on June 2, recalls The worldParis 2024 assured to be “on the right track” to achieve its objective.

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