Olympic advocates want Vancouver to bid on the 2030 Winter Games — but will climate change stop them?
Economic recovery, infrastructure investments touted as benefits of potential bid
As Vancouver mulls a potential bid for the 2030 Olympic Games, some climate change experts doubt the region's capability to host given modelling that suggests warmer winters and less snow.
City of Vancouver staff are currently looking into the possibility of bidding for the 2030 Winter Games after Coun. Melissa De Genova put forward a motion to examine bringing them back to the region 20 years after hosting the 2010 Olympic Games.
De Genova says the excitement around this summer's 2020 Olympics in Tokyo is evidence that, despite the pandemic, people are still hungry for live sporting events.
"There was still that worldwide cheering on of our athletes," she said.
De Genova says she was first inspired to put forward the motion during the 10-year anniversary of the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Winter Games.
Her arguments in favour of exploring this possibility include the ability to use existing infrastructure from the 2010 Games, the influx of government funding that would create new infrastructure projects and economic and social benefits that would come with hosting a large-scale international event again.
Pandemic recovery
When the motion was delayed because of COVID-19, her added arguments included attracting tourists and dollars to the region to help recover from the pandemic.
"The economic benefit is really important," De Genova said. "We have a mandate and we have to answer the provincial government. We have to balance our budget."
A bid group, Vancouver 2030, has been working to bring the Winter Games back to Vancouver. And former Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee CEO John Furlong has spoken out in favour as well.
But those who study climate change and its impact say this summer's Olympics were a testament to how a hotter planet is likely to disrupt these kinds of events, even just 10 years from now.
In Tokyo, many athletes struggled to cope with the heat, which also caused the women's gold medal soccer match between Canada and Sweden to be moved to the evening in a different venue.
People like Tom Green, senior climate policy adviser with the David Suzuki Foundation, say hosting the Games in Vancouver and Whistler would be risky given modelling that suggests warmer winters and less snow for the region.
"We keep being surprised by how quickly climate is changing," Green said. "We should only be hosting it if, as a province, we are doing everything possible to show the world that we can get off fossil fuels quickly."
Grim projections
Research from 2019 in the journal Current Issues in Tourism suggests that only a dozen of the last 21 Winter Games venues would still be viable by 2050 — and Vancouver wasn't one of the 12 to make the cut.
The amount of snow on the North Shore Mountains is expected to drop by half by 2050, Green says — and although that's still a long way off, he says the trend for 2030 isn't looking great.
Green points out that the 2010 Games already had problems with insufficient snow. As some may recall, organizers had to truck snow from the Interior to the North Shore during what was an unseasonably warm and dry winter.
Five years later, in 2015, ski runs on the North Shore closed early because of a dismal season of meagre snowfall.
And although Whistler is higher up and further inland, Green says, it too is projecting similar outcomes in upcoming years and already struggles with rain at the village base.
Sean Cruz, a spokesperson for the 2030 bid committee, agrees that creating a carbon neutral event is a major consideration.
However, Cruz says snowfall in B.C. has been "fairly consistent" in the past 10 years, with the 2009/2010 ski season a weather anomaly.
"A warming planet and continued climate change does not necessarily mean less snow for the coastal mountain ranges of southwestern British Columbia," he said.
Targeting zero emissions
Simon Donner, a professor and climate scientist at the University of British Columbia, agrees with Green that the snow forecast for 2030 isn't looking positive.
If the region were to pursue a bid anyway, Donner would like to see aggressive zero-emission targets put in place.
"We have to be serious about using the Olympics to really push ahead on net zero infrastructure, buildings, transit, everything. Otherwise, it's a mistake," Donner said.
"My worry is that we won't be ready and we'll compromise."
Donner says the infrastructure that was completed for the 2010 Winter Games was great for the time, but doesn't meet the needs of 2030.
To meet current targets for 2050, any potential bid for the 2030 Winter Games in Vancouver would need not only zero-emission vehicles and buildings, but also a way to pull carbon emissions out of the atmosphere to make up for the thousands of athletes and spectators who would travel to the region.
But Donner isn't confident that will happen.
"I wouldn't call the IOC the most forward-thinking organization in the world," he said.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
