When Brisbane was awarded the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games, it came with a widely publicised landmark promise: the world’s first “climate-positive” games.
The International Olympic Committee had already announced all games would be climate-positive from 2030. It said this meant the games would be required to “go beyond” the previous obligation of reducing carbon emissions directly related to their operations and offsetting or otherwise “compensating” for the rest.
In other words, achieving net-zero was no longer sufficient. Now each organising committee would be legally required to remove more carbon from the atmosphere than the games emit. This is in keeping with the most widely cited definition of climate-positive.
