Climate change could threaten the Olympic Games as we know them, according to a new study in The Lancet.
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The study focused on the Northern Hemisphere, which is home to almost 90 per cent of the world’s population, partly in order for there to be a consistent definition of “summer” as the period between July and August – when the Olympics are traditionally scheduled.
[Campus global environmental health professor Kirk] Smith noted that the study centered on the Northern Hemisphere because roughly 90 percent of the world’s population resides there and because allowing a city in the Southern Hemisphere to host the Summer Olympics would necessitate having those Games in January or February. Cities with fewer than 600,000 residents, along with those situated more than a mile above sea level, were likewise excluded from consideration.
The Olympic-themed studies join a growing body of work demonstrating how if climate scientists projections for the century prove accurate a wide array of climate impacts will result in enormous disruption to the global economy. The researchers also assumed that any venue with more than a 10 percent chance of having to cancel a marathon-a signature event-on short notice would preclude that city as an Olympic candidate. The marathon is one of the signature outdoor events in the Olympics.
“If you’re going to be spending billions of dollars to host an event, you’re going to want have a level of certainty that you’re not going to have to cancel it at the last minute”, Professor Smith said in a statement. A 2014 study by the University of Waterloo found that only six of the 19 cities that previously hosted the games would be cold enough or have enough snow to reliably host.
According to the projection models, by 2085, all of the cities that are or were in contention for either the 2020 or 2024 summer Olympics, Istanbul, Madrid, Rome, Paris and Budapest, would be unfit to host the games.
St. Petersburg in Russia, Riga in Latvia, Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan and Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia would be among the eight “low risk” cities outside western Europe. Western Europe itself is home to 25 “low risk” cities.
Vancouver and Calgary are listed as two other potential sites, while “not a single city in Latin America or in Africa would be suitable for the Olympics by that date”, The Daily Californian reports.
Looking further ahead into the 22nd Century, the researchers predicted that only four Northern Hemisphere cities would be capable of qualifying: Belfast, Dublin, Edinburgh, and Glasgow. “It is a substantially changing world”.
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“I hold out hope that between science and policy, we can alleviate these problems that go along with radical changes to our climate”, Amundson said. So climate change isn’t necessarily the end of the games, but it’s definitely something worth thinking about. “We need a carbon-free economy that can only come through government – not just our government but those around the world”.
