Linking Carbon Footprints to Air-Pollutant Emissions from Mega Sporting Events: Evidence from the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics

Information from the abstract

Mega sporting events report carbon footprints, but rarely describe the air pollutants that accompany them. This study links the verified greenhouse-gas inventory of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics (713,788 t CO2e, 2016–2022) to co-emitted NOx, SO2, PM2.5, CO and NMVOC in a screening-level, emission-side assessment using eight emission carriers with Chinese pollutant-to-CO2 ratios, Shapley attribution, and Monte Carlo and Sobol analyses. Construction accounted for 63% of the CO2e, an estimated 70% of the 1335 t of NOx, and 76% of the 279 t of PM2.5, remaining the largest NOx source in 99.9–100% of uncertainty draws and under alternative attributions. The measures taken, chiefly the employment of green electricity, avoided 31% of no-measure emissions and 18% of NOx under market-based accounting, but only 8% of NOx if green certificates were not used. Under literature-based assumptions, eight additional levers could have cut CO2e by 46% (41–53%) and NOx by 49%; zero-emission construction machinery avoids the most NOx per tonne of CO2. A residual of 384,375 t would remain; the offsets retired (2.4 times the emissions) reduced no air pollutants. For construction-dominated events, such as this pandemic-era edition, climate- and air-quality co-benefits are decided largely at the design stage, through materials and machinery, rather than by offsetting.

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Related topics: Environmental Impact and Sustainability · Sport and Mega-Event Impacts · Atmospheric chemistry and aerosols