PARIS — How can a global sporting event, with millions of people gathering in one city, be produced in the era of global warming?
That is the test for the Paris Olympics this summer.
These Olympic Games, organizers say, will generate no more than half the greenhouse gas emissions of recent Games.
That means reducing the impact of everything that produces gas emissions: electricity, food, buildings and transportation, including the jet fuel that athletes and fans burn traveling the world to get there.
An event that attracts 10,500 athletes and approximately 15 million spectators will, by definition, have an environmental cost. That has led those who love the Games but hate pollution to suggest that the Olympics should be spread around the world, in existing facilities, to eliminate the need for so much new construction and air travel.
That's why Paris is being watched so closely.
It's making more room for bikes and less for cars. It is eliminating the huge diesel-powered generators, a common feature at large sporting events. He's planning guest menus that are less polluting to grow and cook than typical French fare: more plants, less filet au poivre. Solar panels will float, temporarily, in the Seine.
But the most significant act of the organizers may be what they are not doing: they are not building. At least, not so much.
Instead of adding shiny facilities, the Paris Olympics are repurposing many of the City's existing attractions, including the Grand Palais, the plaza known as Concorde, and even a swimming pool built for the 1924 Paris Olympics.
One notable emissions reduction effort — the decision to do away with conventional air conditioning in the athletes' village — has raised concerns. The buildings will depend on a cooling system that uses water extracted from the ground. Several Olympic teams are considering bringing in their own air conditioners.
The few new facilities being built, including athlete housing, a swimming complex and an arena, are using less cement and more wood. They have solar panels and vegetation on their roofs. The new buildings are designed to be used by local residents for decades to come and will revitalize the City's suburbs, organizers say.
Critics respond that truly addressing the climate crisis requires more than cutting emissions here and there. “We need to fundamentally rethink these huge mega-events,” said Cesar Dugast, co-founder of a climate analysis group called Eclaircies. “Instead of concentrating all the events in a single city, you could think about distributing them throughout the world.”
The Olympics face a more immediate risk: climate change itself. Rising global temperatures are making summers in Paris dangerously hot. That has raised concerns about how to protect athletes and fans in late July and August.
City officials say they have planted thousands of trees in recent years to mitigate the summer heat. They are erecting misting towers to spray the air.
Organizers have imposed a limit on the total emissions the Games will produce. The goal: to generate no more than half the greenhouse gas emissions of the 2012 Olympic Games, held in London. Organizers say they will offset those emissions by purchasing “carbon credits” to help finance emissions reduction projects around the world, although the carbon credit market can be murky and some projects don't live up to their promise.
What Paris is doing shows how it is possible to remake an ancient city for a new global climate.
The Paris Games have also reached a special agreement with the electric utility company stipulating that there will be enough wind and solar energy on the grid to produce all the energy consumed by the Games.
Transportation is another headache. Paris has already been limiting space for cars and creating space for bicycles, and is using the Games to accelerate that change.
Since the election of Anne Hidalgo as Mayor in 2014, Paris has added some 600 kilometers of bike lanes.
Another problem is that the City's subway system is already overcrowded and workers are racing to complete extensions to two lines in time to serve the Games. To make room for Olympic visitors, the City has also urged residents to stay off trains or work from home.
The key to the organizers' climate strategy is to build as little as possible, which is why they will take advantage of a leftover from the 1924 Paris Olympic Games: the Georges Vallerey swimming pool. It will receive a new air filtration system, as well as a new roof that lets light in, but keeps heat and cold out. The wooden bleachers, installed at least 40 years ago, remain.
About 95 percent of the facilities are old buildings or temporary structures. Several temporary pools will be built for the Games and then reinstalled in communities that have a shortage of public pools.
A new aquatic center is a masterpiece of Douglas fir and pine trees. Its 5,000 square meter roof is curved like a wave: the architects designed it this way to reduce the size of the building, reducing the energy needed to heat the space.
Nearby stands the largest new Olympic project: the approximately 52-hectare Athletes' Village complex that will later be transformed into a mixed neighborhood for 6,000 residents. Its builders say its emissions are at least 30 percent lower than those of a conventional project of its size.
Wood also plays a leading role here. The villa is a group of mostly wooden-framed buildings. Wood is considered much more sustainable than concrete. A network of pipes, using water first cooled underground, will cool the inside of buildings using a technology known as a geoexchange system.
Along with shade from trees, insulation and river breezes, builders say interior temperatures can stay cool enough for the Parisian summers of the future. However, organizers say, Olympic teams are free to bring their own air conditioners.
The United States, Canada and Norway said they would do so. Australia and Ireland have also done so, according to press reports. In an interview with Reuters, Mayor Hidalgo urged teams to “trust the science.”
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