The Paris Olympics organizers say the event was far less polluting than recent Games

France and Argentina compete in the blind football gold medal match at the 2024 Paralympics, Sept. 7, 2024, in Paris, France. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena, File)

PARIS -

The Paris Olympics says it was far less polluting than recent Games but is not claiming to have been “carbon neutral” despite funding projects to compensate for its emissions.

Organizers said Wednesday that this summer's Olympics and Paralympics generated 1.59 million tons of climate-warming carbon dioxide, from the food athletes ate and construction of their rooms to flights that spectators took and energy that powered events.

According to a French government carbon-impact calculator, 1.59 million tons of CO2 is equivalent to driving a car 182,675 times around the globe or 898,305 return flights between Paris and New York.

Still, Paris Games organizers said they more than met their goal of slashing the Olympics' pollution footprint by half — announcing a 54.6 per cent reduction in CO2 emissions compared to the London Olympics in 2012 and the Rio de Janeiro Games in 2016.

Here's a look at how they did it and tips they offered to future hosts, starting with the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics and the next Summer Games in Los Angeles in 2028.

Thinking ahead about CO2

Paris organizers said thinking about carbon emissions far in advance of the Games and setting a reduction target were key. Those who led the task of planning and organizing the mega-event were given carbon budgets. Measures to slash emissions were built into plans from the start.

“To change things, we had to reinvent,” said Georgina Grenon, the Games' director of environmental excellence.

No reduction too small

Just as athletes seek ways to shave milliseconds off their times, Paris organizers sought not just big carbon savings — by building just one competition venue specifically for the Games — but smaller ones, too.

The Olympic cauldron used electricity and LED spotlights to give the impression of being ablaze. That made it 300 times less polluting than if it had burned gas, Grenon said. Even Olympic medals included recycled materials, with each embedded with a reused chunk of the Eiffel Tower.

Electricity powered 98.4 per cent of the Games' energy needs and organizers said a purchasing agreement they signed with power supplier EDF ensured it was all solar- or wind-generated.

Plant-based hot dogs and other vegetarian offerings less carbon-intensive than meat dishes accounted for 40 per cent of the food that spectators ate, and the carbon footprint of meals served to Games workers and volunteers was half that of the typical French meal, organizers said.

Spectators inflated the carbon bill

In selling 12.1 million tickets, Paris set attendance records. But transporting spectators to the French capital and to events came at an unexpectedly large carbon cost. Transport had been expected to account for about one-third of Paris' carbon footprint, but organizers said it ended up accounting for 53 per cent.

“We were a bit victims of our success, because we sold many more tickets than initially estimated,” Grenon said.

Just over 66 per cent of spectators came from France. More than 21 per cent came from elsewhere in Europe and another 12 per cent came from further afield, led by ticket-holders from the United States, Brazil and Canada. For spectators who took long-haul flights, the carbon impact was about 1,000 times greater than transporting those from the Paris region, organizers said.

Paris not claiming to be ‘carbon neutral’

Organizers said they are spending just over 12 million euros (US$12.6 million) on projects in Africa, Asia, Central America and France that aim to compensate for the Games' 1.59 million tons of carbon emissions.

The money is funding tens of thousands of less-polluting cooking stoves and access to water in Nigeria, Congo, Kenya and Rwanda, solar power in Senegal and Vietnam and forestation in Guatemala, Kenya, Senegal and France, organizers said.

But Grenon said that while the projects aim to compensate for emissions, Paris won't label its Games “carbon neutral” because that can be misleading.

“It can give the impression that there is no impact when there is an impact," she added. “There was an impact but we treated it and, most of all, we reduced it.”