As the planet warms, how can the Winter Olympics and Paralympics adapt?

By Canadian Press on January 21, 2026.

TORONTO — New research out of Canada is pitching ideas for how to make the Winter Olympics and Paralympics more resilient to climate change.

It builds on recent research co-authored by the University of Waterloo’s Daniel Scott that suggested only 16 of a possible 93 locations can reliably host the Paralympics in March by 2080 if global warming continues on its current trajectory.

The Olympics fare better with about half of those locations keeping up enough snow depth and cold temperatures to reliably host in February.

The new research published today says unifying the Games in February is one strategy, but the mega event would raise more logistical issues and possibly cut out smaller cities.

Another idea Scott and his co-authors say is promising would be shifting both Games earlier by two to three weeks.

The study suggests that nearly doubles the number of reliable Paralympic locations by 2080 with only a small cut to the list of potential Olympic hosts.

The research also suggests snowmaking, despite its water and energy demands, will be critical to the future of the Games.

Without it, the study suggests only seven places could reliably host the events right now, down to four or fewer by mid-century.

The study says those who oppose snowmaking at the Winter Games would “condemn” the events to increasingly unfair and unsafe conditions for athletes, until snow sports are excluded entirely.

Snowmaking has been used at each Winter Games since Lake Placid in 1980, but Beijing was the first to rely on it almost entirely in 2022.

At next month’s Milan Cortina Games, organizers plan to make about 2.4 million cubic metres of snow. When Cortina hosted in 1956, no manufactured snow was used, though some was trucked in by the Italian army from the Dolomites.

Finding ways to make snowmaking more sustainable must be a priority for the Games, the study said.

In a statement, co-author Madeleine Orr said “no sport can escape the impacts of climate change.”

“The world’s best athletes, who have dedicated their lives to sport, deserve nothing less than the best conditions that can be provided sustainably. The winter sport community must work together to find solutions to adapt to climate change and achieve the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement,” said Orr, a sport ecology professor at the University of Toronto.

The study was published in the peer-reviewed journal Current Issues in Tourism and co-authored with Robert Steiger at Austria’s University of Innsbruck.

Previous research co-authored by Steiger and Scott showed that of the 21 hosts to date, almost half would not be “climatically reliable” by mid-century. A location was unreliable if it didn’t have sufficient snow depth or cold temperatures in 75 per cent of its winters.

That research got the attention of the International Olympic Committee. Scott says shortly after they presented their findings, the IOC paused the bidding race for the 2030 Games and cited the need to further study the effects of climate change.

Scott and Steiger were commissioned by the IOC to expand their original analysis to 93 locations, including mountain ranges with ski runs approved for international competition. The highest-elevation ski resorts in each of those ranges were assessed in the 2024 study.

The Games now require snow competition venues to be climate-reliable until at least mid-century.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 21, 2026.

– With files from The Associated Press

Jordan Omstead, The Canadian Press