Are We Overlooking Justice Implications for the Olympics 2024 Sustainability Goals?

The 2024 Summer Olympics will begin in two weeks, with much of the attention focused not only on the sporting contests, but also the efforts of organizers to cut down on the carbon footprint of the event.

Farhana Sultana is a professor in Syracuse University’s Maxwell School. Her areas of expertise include environmental justice, sustainability and political ecology. Professor Sultana co-wrote this op-ed for The Guardian about the Cop28 climate conference. She comments below on the sustainability measures around the upcoming Paris games and is available for interview.

Professor Sultana says:

“The Paris Summer Olympics has created a buzz around sustainability, with the goal to half the emissions of prior games. Planners stated goals to reduce carbon footprint and emissions across sectors such as transportation, construction, and operations. Historical lack of transparency, accountability, greenwashing, and tweaking at the margins of sustainability have plagued such massive events.

“What’s often overlooked are justice implications locally and globally, in terms of local social and environmental impacts long-term, as well as global climate injustices via rise in greenhouse emissions, problematic carbon offset programs, resource extraction issues, waste dumping, and ecosystems impacts. Whether Paris offers significant changes remain to be seen.”

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Daryl Lovell
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