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This week:
- Paris’s Olympic legacy — cool ideas or hot competition?
- Brazil is a renewables superpower
- Ottawa’s plan to phase out oil-fired furnaces
Paris’s Olympic legacy — cool climate solutions or dangerously hot competition?
Paris is striving for an Olympic legacy of sustainability, but organizers have faced criticism for some of their strategies before the Games even begin.
Marketed as the most climate-friendly Games to date, the Paris 2024 organizers are aiming to halve the carbon emissions of the Games in London and Rio de Janeiro.
The Paris Games aspire to be the first Olympics aligned with 2015’s Paris Agreement. They are set to run on 100 per cent renewable energy, with 95 per cent of the venues built in pre-existing or temporary spaces.
“From spectator seating to tents, beds, chairs, tables and even tennis balls — every asset has been meticulously planned,” the official Olympics website reads.
But at least one part of the plan is unravelling just weeks before the opening ceremonies.
A water-based geothermal cooling system meant to keep the athletes’ village buildings at least 6 C cooler than outside temperatures got significant pushback from national teams.
Organizers have been insistent that the proven cooling technology, along with passive building design, would keep athletes comfortable.
But with high temperatures expected in Paris, and high stakes for safety and performance, many teams made plans to bring in portable units for cooler sleeping conditions.
The Paris organizers are now offering air conditioner rentals for teams willing to pay, and at least 2,500 units will be installed before the start of the Games on July 26, including for Team Canada’s athletes.
The green-Games tension also extends to the official car of the Olympics — the Toyota Mirai.
The hydrogen fuel-cell-powered car, and the other hydrogen vehicles that will be used to transport athletes and visitors, “risk derailing the sustainability goals of the Paris Olympics,” according to an open letter by over 120 scientists, academics, and engineers from 15 countries, including Canada.
They suggested battery-powered electric vehicles are more energy efficient, with hydrogen vehicles requiring three times as much energy to operate. While it has potential to be clean, with current manufacturing techniques, hydrogen itself is a fossil fuel-intensive product.
The letter says, for now, hydrogen vehicle uptake would actually lead to increased fossil fuel emissions.
In spite of the debate around clean technologies, Paris 2024 is making a point to avoid traditional fossil fuel products and partnership, under the leadership of its climate-focused mayor, Anne Hidalgo.
France banned fossil fuel advertising related to energy products in 2022, although it doesn’t officially extend to sporting events.
Some national teams will still have ties to oil and gas companies, which University of Toronto sports ecologist and author Madeleine Orr says is a legacy funding source for sport that will eventually need dismantling, given the visibility and influence of athletes in society.
“If you’re competing on Team Canada, which is sponsored at the moment by Petro-Can and RBC, two brands obviously connected to funding fossil fuels and producing fossil fuels, it can feel a bit tricky figuring it out,” she says.
“Tobacco got kicked out not because sport didn’t want them there anymore, but because laws came into play that banned their intervention in sport.”
Team Canada is not alone in accepting fossil fuel sponsorship. Team Great Britain is sponsored by BP and British Gas, Australia’s national team by Hancock Prospecting and the Indian team gets funding from Reliance Industries Limited — billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s umbrella corporation that includes petrochemicals and natural gas.
Securing funding is often a challenge for amateur athletes, but many are starting to speak up as heat threatens their ability to train and compete.
Most recently, several athletes were involved in a report raising concerns about Paris’s temperatures and how they may jeopardize performance and safety for both competitors and spectators.
In extreme cases, heat stroke can cause death.
Tokyo’s Olympics in 2021 were the warmest Games in history. Events were postponed and relocated, and athletes suffered debilitating impacts of competing in dangerous temperatures, regardless of their efforts to acclimatize.
Since then, each of the last 13 months have broken global temperature records, and Europe is the fastest warming continent on the planet.
— Jill English
Old issues of What on Earth? are here. The CBC News climate page is here.
Check out our podcast and radio show. In our newest episode: When Eli Milton started working on farms in Nova Scotia almost a decade ago, heat wasn’t an issue in the summer. Now, extreme weather has put farm workers like her at risk, out in the fields and inside greenhouses.
What On Earth24:42How to keep farm work cool when the greenhouse hits 46 C
What On Earth drops new podcast episodes every Wednesday and Saturday. You can find them on your favourite podcast app, or on demand at CBC Listen. The radio show airs Sundays at 11 a.m. ET, 11:30 a.m. in Newfoundland and Labrador.
Reader feedback: A tip for Tim Hortons and helmets for bike sharing
In last week’s issue, we learned that Tim Hortons outlets should be using reusable cups when customers bring their own mugs — and that customer service wants to know about locations using disposables. Harmit S. Bajaj wrote: “The company could also send ‘undercover customers’ instead [of] or in addition to customers pointing [out] the locations. The onus is on the company to demonstrate its responsibility, as much or maybe more than the customers.”
Regarding the growth of bike sharing, Léa Monty of Vancouver wrote that her girlfriend has a Mobi membership, and she’s considering it, not “just for the ease or speed at which we will get to our destination. It is also very exciting for us to have a form of transportation that doubles as exercise. Active transportation is very important and undervalued in car-centric spaces. Bike sharing services are both a climate solution and a health solution!”
Glori-Jeanne Stephenson of Calgary wrote: “Where are the helmets?”
Bike helmet laws vary across the country, but in some jurisdictions, such as Toronto and Montreal, they’re not mandatory for adults on regular bikes, although bike sharing services encourage them. In Vancouver, where helmets are required by provincial law, Mobi provides helmets and helmet liners.
Write us at whatonearth@cbc.ca.
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The Big Picture: Brazil is a renewables superpower
Brazil has the largest share of renewable electricity in the G20, clocking in at 89 per cent, according to an analysis by the energy think tank Ember. That soaring score means the country has the lowest power sector emissions per capita in the G20.
Brazil earned its top spot by building up wind and solar installations atop a solid foundation of hydropower. Wind and solar provided 21 per cent of the country’s electricity in 2023, up from six per cent in 2016.
While Canada can claim a solid No. 2 standing, thanks largely to our extensive hydroelectric base, we’ve been far slower to bring solar and wind generation online. In Canada’s energy mix, wind and solar made up only seven per cent, compared to the global average of 13 per cent.
And where the majority of G20 economies are rapidly decarbonizing their power sectors — France’s emissions have dropped 22 per cent and Germany 19 per cent — Canada’s rose two per cent between 2022 and 2023.
The Ember report suggested G20 countries were in the best position to lead on the rapid growth of renewables. They accounted for 84 per cent of global power sector emissions in 2023, which, when combined, continue to grow.
In a statement, Kostantsa Rangelova, the author of the report, said, “The rest of the G20 can follow Brazil’s successful model and lead the global transition to a sustainable energy future.”
– Hannah Hoag
Hot and bothered: Provocative ideas from around the web
Ottawa unveils plan to phase out oil-fired furnaces and support heat pumps
The federal government has a plan to start phasing out the use of oil-fired furnaces in new construction and get homeowners and businesses to switch to heat pumps over the next several years.
The Canada Green Buildings Strategy outlines Ottawa’s priorities for decarbonizing buildings — the third-largest source of climate-altering carbon emissions in Canada.
The strategy does not target natural gas and propane heating sources. While the document doesn’t explain in any detail how Ottawa means to phase out oil-fired furnaces, Energy Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said the federal government intends to use regulations and investments to encourage the switch to heat pumps.
“We will be moving to ban the use of heating oil in new construction. And that simply reflects the fact that there are lots of alternatives to heating oil,” Wilkinson told CBC ahead of the strategy’s release.
“Heating oil is enormously expensive, and it is the most polluting fuel that we use to heat our homes.
Heat pumps — which use electricity and don’t burn fossil fuels — are more efficient than traditional indoor climate control because they transfer warm or cold air instead of generating it. They don’t release toxic fumes and don’t cause costly oil spills.
More than a million homes in Canada are heated with oil, most of them in Quebec, Ontario, Nova Scotia and British Columbia.
But heat pumps also come with considerable upfront costs. According to Efficiency Canada, the average cost of a heat pump in Canada is $18,400, while the average price of an oil furnace with a tank replacement is $6,500.
Wilkinson has said that affordability programs the federal government is co-delivering with some provincial governments can bring the cost of heat pumps down.
After the oil and gas and transportation sectors, buildings are the third largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the country according to Environment and Climate Change Canada. In 2022, their emissions totalled 89 megatonnes, equal to the emissions from 201 million barrels of oil.
The federal government has vowed to slash emissions in the buildings sector by 37 per cent below 2005 levels and then achieve net-zero in the sector by 2050.
The document also says homebuilders need to construct more “green and affordable homes from the start” and warns that the use of materials manufactured through processes that emit a lot of carbon — such as cement and steel — could undo much of the sector’s progress in reducing its emissions.
But the federal government doesn’t really have many options to change the way homes are built. The strategy carefully points out that while Ottawa can set standards for federal construction, it’s up to provincial and territorial governments to adopt and implement them.
The strategy does say that Ottawa can leverage its buying and spending power to encourage provinces, territories, municipalities and the building sector to become more green.
– David Thurton
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Editors: Emily Chung and Hannah Hoag | Logo design: Sködt McNalty
