Esme Stallard and Wanyuan Song collaborated on a reality check.
Image source, Getty ImagesThe Winter Olympics will be held in China on 4 February.
They prioritised protecting native species, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and cutting down on resources.
Some people think that the Winter Olympics will be the first to use only artificial snow, and that some events will be held in the middle of a nature reserve.
The popular Alpine ski events will be hosted inYanqing.
The ski runs were built in the middle of the Songshan nature reserve, over an area larger than a thousand football pitches.
More than 20,000 trees were removed during the last few years for the construction.
The Beijing Olympics Committee promised to transplant the trees and 81 hectares of topsoil to another location in the mountains north of the city. More than 90% of the trees have survived the move, according to it.
Image source, Getty ImagesThe University of Strasbourg's Professor of Hydrology, Dr Carmen de Jong, says that the removal of the top layer in this process could lead to more damage to the environment.
The nature reserve has lost 25% of its surface, which has a high level of protected species.
The site was not moved because the BOC was warned about the environmental risk early on.
The issue was reported to have been removed from Chinese social media site Weibo.
The Beijing Organising Committee told us that they had done their best to protect the ecosystems in the competition zones.
Beijing has promised that all competition venues will be covered with high-quality snow despite the city only having a few days of snow in recent years.
The site of the ski centre gets an average of just over eight inches of snow a year.
The venue needs more than 1.2 million metres of snow for the Olympics. For the first time, 100% artificial snow will be used.
The process of making snow is both energy and resource intensive. 49 million gallons of water have been used in a region which is already short of water.
Image source, Getty ImagesThe IOC was concerned about this issue when they were evaluating candidate cities to host the Winter Olympics.
Beijing's reliance on artificial snowmaking would require the diversion of water from existing reservoirs and may impact other land uses.
Beijing insists the water used for the Olympics accounts for less than 2% of the local water supply. The snow cannons being used need 20% less energy than previous games.
The Beijing Winter Olympics would be the first carbon-neutral Games. China wants to deliver the games using 100% renewable energy.
Over the past six years, the organizers have built new wind and solar projects to deliver clean energy for the whole of Beijing.
If you take the government's figure for the amount of coal saved, you could avoid over 12 million tonnes of CO2 emissions annually.
Image source, ReutersCritics argue that the Olympics green energy pledge should not hide the fact that over half of China's energy is still produced from coal.
Vehicles and industries that emit the most CO2 will be restricted in the Beijing area. The organizers decided not to allow foreign spectators for Covid safety reasons, which resulted in a reduction in travel emissions.
Image source, Getty Images80,000 hectares of trees will be planted around Beijing to offset any remaining emissions. The use of trees to counter emissions is controversial.
The trees have to grow for 10 to 20 years to remove carbon from the atmosphere, they have to be maintained, and they can disrupt native ecosystems according to a UN-sponsored report.
Concerns have been raised about the resources needed for snow production in previous Winter Games.
The authorities were criticized for flying in snow from other places by helicopter.
The IOC declared in 2020 that it would take a more proactive position and leadership role with regard to sustainable development.
The Winter Games have been held in 20 venues since 1924, but only 10 will have the natural snowfall levels to host an event by the year 2050, according to a report this week.
