Paris Olympics 2024 will not just be a regular quadrennial event where the best athletes will come together. Besides producing one of the most memorable Summer Games, the organisers have also set an ambitious target of having an environment-friendly event. Their target is to halve the overall carbon footprint compared with the 2012 London and 2016 Rio Games.
And to do this they are ready to take bold steps. Like sending surfing competitions to the other side of the world — in the Pacific waters of Tahiti. It resulted in a major controversy as Tahitians and others railed against the building of a new viewing tower on Teahupo’o reef because of fears it would hurt marine life.
But organisers say it wasn’t just the world-class waves that lured them to the French territory 16,000 kilometers (9,942 miles) away. Tahiti’s surfing reef is too far offshore for fans to see the action clearly from the beach, so organisers say they calculated that most would watch on television instead of taking flights, a major source of carbon emissions. And fewer spectators, they said, would require little new construction, another key emissions source.
“We actually did the math,” said Georgina Grenon, director of environmental excellence for the Paris Games. “There was less impact in Tahiti compared to other metropolitan areas.” Tahiti’s selection, however, also underscores an inherent tension in the drive for sustainability: There are tradeoffs, and reducing emissions doesn’t nece.