What is the environmental impact of the Winter Olympics?

0:00Today on State of the World, what is the environmental impact of the Winter Olympics?

0:09You're listening to State of the World from NPR. We bring you the day's most vital international stories, up close, where they're happening. I'm Greg Dixon. The Winter Olympics are underway in Milan and across the Italian Alps. In their bid to host these games, organizers made a bold pledge. They promised the games would be sustainable. That meant slashing the event's carbon emissions and protecting Italy's sensitive mountain ecosystem. And PR's Ruth Sherlock looked into whether that promise is being fulfilled. And environmental groups showed her a different story. Ski lifts move up the mountainside in the alpine resort of Cortina d 'Ampezzo, where workers build a stand from where the audience will watch the world's top skiers of this Winter Olympics.

0:57But there is one thing conspicuously missing. Snow. I'm standing surrounded by these beautiful Dolomite peaks which are completely bare, leading down to forests and green pastures. And then here on the ski piece are these strips of artificial snow. To one side the snow blowers are working hard. Skiers speed down this manufactured white snow. As winters become shorter and warmer because of climate change, ski resorts rely on this technology more and more. And now this Winter Olympic Games in Italy depends on it too.

1:45Fabio Tullio, an environmental activist monitoring these Olympics, cites official figures that these games will use some 2.4 million cubic metres of artificial snow. That requires energy and a lot of water. Water that he says is taken from alpine springs and rivers nearby.

2:12He takes us, driving through these Dolomite mountains, a protected UNESCO heritage site, to a spot on the river Boite. We've arrived at the river where water is being taken to feed the artificial snow. It is a building site. Trees cut down, left on the side, huge piles of earth, bits of pipe. This beautiful, pristine alpine scene has been devastated from the construction site, and the air, well, you just smell the petrol from the generator. Overall, some 380 Olympic swimming pools worth will be taken from water sources like this. It's a huge amount. So what is the impact of this on the local ecology and biodiversity?

3:05This is the real problem, Tullio says. we don't know, because no in-depth environmental study has been undertaken for many of the almost 100 infrastructure projects approved for the games in the area. His claim is backed up by official documents. For months now, residents of Cortina d 'Ampezzo have lived with this noise.

3:34Standing on this vantage point overlooking Cortina, I can count one, two, three, four, more than 20 cranes marking out the different construction projects.

3:50Luigi Casanova, the 70-year-old director of a local environmental group, Mountain Wilderness, has written two books arguing against the changes being brought by these Winter Olympics to a mountain ecosystem and town that he loves.

4:10Instead of Queen of the Dolomites, as Cortina likes to be known, why don't we call her the Queen of Cement? We stand overlooking the new bobsleigh track that snakes its way down the mountainside and dominates the landscape. Hundreds of ancient larch trees were cut down for this project. These are trees that survived two world wars. There was fighting here, but they couldn't survive the vandals of the 2025. The day the men with chainsaws arrived to cut the trees, Casanova was at the site with famous Italian cellist Mario Brunello, who played in protest while the larches fell.

4:55Casanova fears this will only add to the already many abandoned concrete structures from previous sporting events in other parts of the Italian Alps. The government company Simico, responsible for Olympic infrastructure for these Games didn't respond to NPR's questions about the large number of construction projects and the use of water resources It has previously argued that building new developments, like new roads will be useful for residents after the Olympics But at a local cafe, Roberta Zanna, the head of the opposition party in Cortina d 'Ampezzo's local council says many residents don't want these projects.

5:39She worries they'll strip the mountain region further of their remote rural identity. Already in the Dolomites, thousands of tourists regularly gather for selfies at lakes and viewpoints made famous by social media. Roads are choked up with cars.

5:59So maybe, Zanna says, with our mountains already under stress from tourism and the rising temperatures of climate change, now is not the time for more construction, more development, more artificial snow, more hotels that these Winter Olympics bring. Ruth Sherlock, NPR News, Cortina D 'Ampezzo, Italy.

6:27That's the State of the World from NPR. Thanks for listening.