Olympic Games-2024: organizers lift the veil on “climate contribution” projects

The organizers were committed to “supporting climate contribution projects which will make it possible to avoid or capture CO2 equal to the emissions from the Games which could not be avoided”.

In total, four projects in France and nine internationally (Guatemala, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, DRC, Rwanda, Vietnam), which will focus on photovoltaic energy, the protection of forests and mangroves, access to water and distribution of improved cooking stoves.

These latter - a sort of small stove - will be offered in several African countries. They help fight deforestation and indoor pollution caused by traditional cooking.

In France, there will be a reforestation project in Val-d'Oise, in the Paris region.

“We have a fairly pragmatic vision, which is that there are good projects, which have positive effects and therefore we must continue to support them,” underlined Benjamin Lévêque, climate and biodiversity manager for Paris 2024, to the press. .

We need “rigor” and “be more transparent”, he advocated, while the integrity of certain carbon credits has recently been called into question.

The organizers of the Games have committed to halving the average greenhouse gas emissions of the event, compared to the average of those of London (2012) and Rio (2016). These emissions must be divided into three large thirds: construction, game operations and travel.

“The carbon budget is 1,58 million (tons of CO2), two thirds of which today are confirmed with the progress of both Solideo for the village and Paris 2024,” underlined Georgina Grenon, director of the environmental excellence of Paris 2024.

“There remains the question of transport,” she added. “It is the perimeter that logically we control the least” and “each of the tickets must be allocated so that we know how many trips are going to be made and how,” recognized Benjamin Lévêque.

According to the association The Shift Project, the travel of international visitors alone "could generate around 1,1 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent" or "more than twice the carbon budget announced by Paris 2 for its travel component".

“We will see,” replied Georgina Grenon, pointing out methodological differences: “There are models, estimates and we are moving forward with ours.”