The brown dirt trails carved across hillsides and smeared with a crust of icy machine-made snow at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing may have given us a peek into the not-so-distant future of skiing and snowboarding.
As the Earth grows warmer and winters get shorter, climate scientists, resort owners and sports enthusiasts are witnessing the inevitable. Winters are not as cold; snow is arriving later and melting earlier; big dumps are less frequent; and the snow that does fall is often wet and heavy.
What’s new: Two international organizations are coming together in a five-year partnership to “raise awareness of the fact that winter sports and tourism face a bleak future because of climate change.”
For the first time, the U.N.’s World Meteorological Organization is joining forces with an international sports group, the International Ski and Snowboard Federation. Both are headquartered in Switzerland, a country with a storied tradition of the alpine sports that are most endangered.
“Sport has the power to unite people across borders and inspire
positive change,” says FIS spokesperson Jenny Wiedeke. “As well as taking meaningful action on sustainability ourselves, we must also use the voice, influence and platform of high-performance sport to advocate for action on sustainability and inspire others to act and make a difference.”
WMO and FIS announced on Thursday they will work together to identify actions they can take to spread the word and combat global warming while helping the snow-sports industry adapt.
The initial effort will be a Nov. 7 webinar for 137 National Ski Associations, event organizers and venue managers. On the agenda is a look at improving forecasting tools and better managing snow at ski resorts.
What’s at risk: The climate crisis poses “an existential threat to skiing and snowboarding,” says the president of FIS, Johan Eliasch.
During the 2023-24 season, FIS organized 616 World Cup races among all disciplines, spanning across 166 venues. Twenty-six races were cancelled for weather-related reasons.
The International Olympic Committee has said that in 15 years, it’s likely only 10 countries will have sufficient reliable snowfall to host the winter games. FIS created an impact program to engage and lead the industry.
Climate change can be devastating to an industry built around cold and wet weather. Some ski resorts have burned in climate-fueled wildfires. Others simply went out of business, lacking enough snow to operate.
What’s being done: Large resorts that have the resources – money and real estate – are spending millions to install state-of-the-art snow-making equipment while opening new trails higher on their mountains.
Many ski areas want to evolve into year-round destinations, with trails for mountain biking and hiking, open lifts for sightseers in summer and autumn, rock climbing facilities, gourmet dining, and luxury rooms.
Some resorts are starting to lobby for climate action while ramping up their own initiatives to improve efficiency, commit to carbon neutrality, cut waste, and install more charging stations for electric vehicles.
Advocacy groups, such as Protect Our Winters, are organizing skiers, snowboarders and other outdoor enthusiasts into a community of activists to push lawmakers for action on lowering greenhouse gas emissions, transitioning to renewable energy and protecting public land.
“Ruined winter vacations and cancelled sports fixtures are – literally – the tip of the iceberg of climate change," says WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo. "Retreating glaciers, reduced snow and ice cover and thawing permafrost are having a major impact on mountain ecosystems, communities and economies, and will have increasingly serious repercussions at local, national and global level for centuries to come."
