2022 dollars per ad second
2022 faces in masks
2022 weeks of detention
for writing accounts of the past
cell phone’s a burner to keep Xi from spying or
picking up secrets and trying, no doubt
to poke holes in flags as they’re waving about
through air thick with smog and fake snow
drifting down
Like snowflakes, each country is unique. That’s why it made for a fitting theme at the opening ceremony of the 2022 Beijing Olympic Winter Games. Choreographed skaters glided and danced with handheld snowflakes, tracing scattershot trails across the Bird’s Nest national stadium. On the floor were projected wintry scenes of smiling Chinese citizens skiing, skating, and curling. During the parade of nations each delegation was introduced by a snowflake-shaped placard with its name printed in both Mandarin and English. Like a puzzle, they were assembled one by one into a larger snowflake centered on the Olympic torch.
In the leadup to the Games, the Chinese Communist Party set a goal to get 300 million of its citizens engaged in winter sports and to build the infrastructure to sustain it long term. Though they have been largely successful, an independent analysis of the economic and natural suitability of China’s ski areas found that 16 percent had “dismal” prospects and only about a quarter were in “ideal” areas.
The problem is that Beijing no longer receives adequate snowfall to hold the Games. Only 150 miles from the Gobi Desert, the region’s winters are cold but dry. Snow for the Olympic venues has instead been made artificially, from an estimated 49 million gallons of groundwater, the same source as the city. An evaluation of the city’s bid by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) concluded that Beijing's “reliance on artificial snowmaking would require [the] diversion of water from existing reservoirs and may impact other land uses.”
It’s not the first of China’s environmental woes. Beijing has long been infamous for poor air quality, the result of coal burning power plants and unchecked industrial expansion such as steel manufacturing. While conditions have improved since it last hosted the summer Games in 2008, PM 2.5 particulate in the city still ranks far above WHO guidelines, among the worst in the world.
China remains heavily reliant on coal—over half of its energy use is supplied by coal fired plants, and consumption is growing. To keep up with demand, the Party plans to build 43 new coal fired power plants, extending China’s lead as the world’s largest carbon emitter.
Still, China’s leaders are using the Games to cast the nation as a global leader in sustainability. The 2022 Games, President Xi Jinping declared, would be the first to be carbon neutral. Renewable energy will power facilities and housing; hydrogen powered buses will ferry athletes back and forth to venues; over 3,500 square miles of trees will be planted to offset emissions from construction.
“The core problem is that sustainability of the Olympics is a very flexible concept,” said Martin Müller, professor of geography and sustainability at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland. “…it’s really up for grabs for the host to decide what to do.” The International Olympic Committee (IOC) doesn’t have any fixed guidelines or criteria that they impose on host nations, much less requirements for reporting to ensure accountability. So when dirty methods are substituted amid lagging construction timelines, or when 2,000 trees from an intact forest are “relocated” to build ski runs, they don't have much recourse.
“Everybody knows the IOC is not going to assign the hosting rights of the Games to another organizer if the original organizer fails to meet the sustainability requirements,” said Arnout Geeraert, a research fellow at the University of Leuven in Belgium. The ball has been rolling for too long. Meanwhile the Games are becoming less sustainable, not more.
A recent study found that of 21 cities to have previously hosted the winter Games, all but one (Sapporo) would not be reliable to do so again by 2080 in a continued high-emissions scenario. (Under a lower-emissions scenario adopted under the Paris Accords, most would continue to be viable.) But warming has already had effects on the Olympics. Vancouver (2010) resorted to bringing in snow by truck and helicopter during a warm snap and Sochi (2014) set a temperature record (68° F) for the winter Games; cross-country skiers overheated as a marathon runner would on a 90-degree day.
The IOC should require future hosts to develop and report clear sustainability objectives and allow for monitoring and assessments by third parties. That requires, of course, that the body extricate itself from the bullying and corruption of the Chinese Communist Party. For example, it is alleged that key components for solar panels (as well as cotton for official Olympic apparel) are being made with forced labor by ethnic minority Uighurs in Xinjiang. Aggressive propaganda campaigns deliver only approved messages to citizens, while widespread surveillance silences internal dissent. The dismal cloud of China’s human rights abuses hung further over the Games: crackdown in Hong Kong, threats against Taiwan, and tacit support for Putin’s war in Ukraine. To show its disapproval, the U.S. and several other nations staged a diplomatic boycott, but it’s unclear how effective such moves are in changing policy.
“That China’s Games-specific pledges may ultimately fail to translate into progress on environmental causes fits with a habit of the Olympics disappointing on its goal to encourage sustainability,” writes Christian Shepard of the Washington Post.
The future of winter sports is uncertain. For decades the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has warned of the dire consequences to be faced if leaders do not drastically reduce global emissions, and its Sixth Assessment Report (February 2022) was the starkest yet: “The rise in weather and climate extremes has led to some irreversible impacts as natural and human systems are pushed beyond their ability to adapt.” Unless fossil fuel use is immediately abandoned on a large scale, they said, those effects will only snowball.
How about Lake Placid for the winter Olympics?