China pledged to deliver an environment-friendly Winter oOympic by protecting native species, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and cutting down on resources. But critics say it uses artificial snow and some games are held in the area of nature reserve. To construct those sites more than 20,000 trees were transplanted and the topsoil was moved to other locations. Specialists say it increases the risk of landslides, water pollution and damages to wildlife. The production of artificial snow requires large amount of water and energy.
Artificial snow was used also in the previous Olympics. Scientists think that among 20 venues used for winter Olympics since 1925 only 10 will have natural snow to host winter Olympic by 2050.
In Tokyo Summer Olympic 2020 we were very concerned about COVID infection. But I did not hear much about the environment protection for the construction of the sites and operation of the games.