9 November 2005
This winter's Olympic games in Turin, Italy will be the most environmentally friendly ever, the organisers said on Wednesday, vowing it would have no net impact on climate change.
With environmentalists keeping a close eye on the games for damage to local or global ecology, organizing committee TOROC said it would invest in tree planting, energy efficiency and renewables to offset its carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.
"This is the first time that an Olympic event will be able to offset all the carbon emissions produced during the event," Ugo Pretato, TOROC's head of environmental programs, said in a statement.
Carbon dioxide, a by-product of combustion, is the main "greenhouse" gas blamed for trapping heat in the atmosphere and causing global warming.
TOROC estimates that transport and other activities at the Games will generate 120,000 tonnes of the gas. By comparison, Italy emitted a total of 430 million tonnes of CO2 from combustion in 1999, according to United Nations figures.
Environmentalists say that preparations for the Olympics, to be held next February, have already damaged the local environment by cutting swathes of Alpine forest to make new facilities, but TOROC says it is managing the local impact well.
Along with the CO2 measures, it says it has improved water efficiency of snow-making machines and will truck tonnes of the additional sewage produced by athletes and spectators to urban treatment centers so it won't choke small mountain facilities.
The head of the U.N. Environment Program (UNEP) welcomed Turin's efforts and said the organisers of the Beijing summer games of 2008 were set to sign an agreement on November 18 to respect environmental concerns.
"In terms of the environment, the two organizing committees are taking forward a green torch first lit at Lillehammer, Norway in 1994," said UNEP head Klaus Toepfer who met members of TOROC at his headquarters in Nairobi.
The environmental impact of Olympic games has become such a high-profile issue that the International Olympic Committee published a guide this week to help event organisers assess and reduce the damage they cause.
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticleSearch.aspx?storyID=259921+09-Nov-2005+RTRS&srch=olympics
