Fake snow, real costs: Climate change puts the future of the Winter Olympics on thin ice

Independent research led by the Olympic World Library last year confirmed that as long as emissions are reduced or stabilised, every region of the world that has already hosted the Olympic Winter Games should still be able to do so until at least the 2050s.

However, researchers warn that as global temperatures rise at an unprecedented pace, the number of sites capable of consistently hosting the Winter Olympics is set to decline sharply in the years ahead. The challenge has become so pressing that the International Olympic Committee is exploring the idea of cycling the Games among a fixed group of climate-reliable venues and shifting them to an earlier slot in the calendar.

As snowfall becomes harder to count on, the foundation of the Olympics' Winter Games is far from solid

March in particular, is becoming too warm to safely stage the Paralympic Games, says Karl Stoss, chair of the IOC’s Future Host Commission. The snow-sport venues selected for the next three Winter Olympic Games, which are the Italian Alps, the French Alps, and Utah’s Wasatch Back, are all considered climatically dependable well beyond mid-century, highlighting the IOC’s focus on climate-resilient locations for the coming decade.

As part of their study, researchers evaluated the long-term climate viability of past Winter Games hosts, along with several prospective regions that had not previously featured in academic research on future Olympic hosting. The IOC’s host-selection process also includes strict criteria, such as a strong emphasis on using existing or temporary infrastructure, aimed at limiting both costs and the environmental impact of staging the Games.

Recently, Belgian biathlete Maya Cloetens who is preparing for next month’s Olympic Games in Milan and Cortina said in an interview with AP that Grenoble, France, where she grew up has completely changed in 15 years.

Grenoble, which staged the 1968 Winter Olympics, now experiences shorter, warmer winters with far less reliable snowfall. When the Games come back to the French Alps in 2030, the city might no longer take centre stage.

The challenge has become so acute that the International Olympic Committee is weighing plans to rotate the Winter Games among a fixed group of viable venues and to move them earlier in the calendar, as March temperatures are increasingly too high for the Paralympic Games, said Karl Stoss, chair of the IOC’s Future Host Commission.

Of the 93 mountain regions worldwide that currently possess the infrastructure needed to stage top-level winter sports, only 52 are expected to retain adequate snow cover and cold conditions to host a Winter Olympics by the 2050s. According to research by Daniel Scott of the University of Waterloo and Robert Steiger of the University of Innsbruck, studies the IOC is drawing on, that figure could fall to just 30 by the 2080s, depending on how effectively global warming is limited.

"While it is inevitable that climate change will impact the geography and development of winter sports to some degree, a reassuring finding is that even with a diminished pool of potential host locations, with continued adaptation the Olympic Winter Games and Paralympic Winter Games can endure as a genuinely global celebration of sport," said Steiger.

Grenoble is not the only former Olympic host that researchers say would fail to meet climate reliability standards by the 2050s. Other past venues such as Chamonix in France, Garmisch-Partenkirchen in Germany, and Sochi in Russia are also considered unsuitable under future climate conditions. Meanwhile, locations that have previously hosted events in Vancouver, Palisades Tahoe in California, Sarajevo in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Oslo in Norway are classified as “climatically risky.”

Northern Italy has long been associated with frigid, snow-laden winters, yet snowfall across the Alpine region has dropped sharply, with the most dramatic declines occurring over the past four decades as temperatures have risen.

In the AP story Italian climatologist Luca Mercalli recalled that 50 years ago, the Alps viewed from his home in Turin stayed blanketed in snow from late October through June. Today, he says, those mountains are frequently bare and grey instead.

Artificial snow was introduced at the Winter Olympics for the first time at the 1980 Lake Placid Games in New York. More recently, Beijing became the first host in 2022 to depend almost entirely on manufactured snow.

However, snowmaking has its limits. Conventional snowmaking systems depend on consistently cold temperatures and low humidity, which are conditions that are becoming harder to guarantee as Europe warms faster than any other continent.

Producing artificial snow also demands vast amounts of energy and water, a process that can worsen climate change if powered by fossil fuels and intensify water stress in already vulnerable areas. For the Milan–Cortina Games, however, energy provider Enel has pledged to supply fully renewable, certified electricity.

Organisers estimate that snow production will require about 250 million gallons (946 million litres) of water, which is roughly the equivalent of 380 Olympic-sized swimming pools. To manage this demand, new high-altitude reservoirs, or artificial lakes, have been constructed to store water specifically for snowmaking.

Organisers are required to generate vast amounts of artificial snow using snow cannons fed by water from a hillside reservoir that cost €21.7 million (US$25.4 million) to construct and was completed in late November.

An April report by the Italian environmental organisation Legambiente claims that Italy relies more heavily on artificial snow than any other country in Europe, with more than 90% of its ski slopes equipped with snowmaking systems. Vanda Bonardo of Legambiente’s Lombardy chapter has warned that the growing footprint of the snowmaking industry is placing an increasing and troubling burden on mountain ecosystems.

"We have to ask ourselves whether it still makes sense to organize major events and concentrate them in very fragile spaces like the Alps. Natural snow is practically becoming the exception," she told AFP.

According to a December 2024 study published in the International Journal of Climatology, the snow cover in the Italian Alps has decreased by half in the past 100 years.

Antonio Montani, the president of the Italian Alpine Club, said the issue went far beyond the next Olympics.

"The Games are the tip of the iceberg, they shine a light on the real problem, which is the hundreds of ski resorts that are only able to operate with artificial snow, with huge energy costs and funded by public subsidies, because otherwise they wouldn't be able to open," he shared.

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