JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
With the Winter Olympics now underway, Italy's mountain resorts have been seeing some big natural snowfalls, but the science is clear - global warming poses an existential threat to future Games. Nat Herz reports on how a group of athletes is questioning an Olympic endorsement deal with a big Italian oil company.
NAT HERZ: Pretty much every Olympic skier has a story about how winter is not the same as it was growing up. Here's American Lindsey Vonn at a news conference Tuesday.
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LINDSEY VONN: As a ski racer, I've seen that firsthand what global warming has done. I've been skiing on glaciers since I was 9 years old, and most of the glaciers that I used to ski on are pretty much gone.
HERZ: Just half of 93 potential host sites for future Winter Games are likely to remain what researchers call climate-reliable in the next half century or so. That's according to a study commissioned by the International Olympic Committee. Which is why a group of athletes is objecting to the Olympics accepting sponsorship money from Eni, the Italian state-controlled oil company. The Olympic torch relay even went to Eni's headquarters with an executive from one of its subsidiaries as a torchbearer.
NIKOLAI SCHIRMER: It feels like winter sports right now are like that string quartet on the Titanic, you know, playing as the ship is sinking. But not only that, they're advertising for icebergs while they're doing it.
HERZ: Nikolai Schirmer helps lead the Ski Fossil Free effort. He's not an Olympian, but a famous Norwegian extreme skier and YouTuber, and he's headlining a petition drive that's drawn support from more than 20,000 people, including a number of Olympic athletes. They're making what they say is a very modest ask, that the Olympics and the umbrella organization that coordinates global ski competitions draft a report examining the ethics of winter sports taking money from fossil fuel companies. The oil industry has sponsored other major events and teams. Gus Schumacher, on the U.S. Olympic cross-country team, is a longtime climate activist. He says that while the debate can get complicated quickly...
GUS SCHUMACHER: I don't even need to go into the economics and the politics of it to just be like, this is a little bit silly. The athletes don't support that. The people that are on the ground don't support that. We want to be able to ski, and we want to be able to ski on natural snow because that's the best way to do it. And I don't want to support companies that are adding fuel to that not being a possibility.
HERZ: Schirmer, the campaign leader, points to the data. Greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels are driving global warming. And while Eni is using its Olympic sponsorship to advertise sustainability and renewable energy-focused business lines, its oil production has still grown in recent years. Schirmer delivered petition signatures to the IOC this week. At a news conference yesterday, the committee praised athletes for speaking up. They pointed to sustainability efforts for these games - renewable electricity at venues, a fleet of cars that's some 20% electric and recycled furniture from the last Summer Olympics. But Christophe Dubi, the Olympics' executive director, did not respond directly to the petition.
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CHRISTOPHE DUBI: We have to recognize one thing - climate is a challenge for all of us. As sport as well, we're not immune to those climate challenge, and we have to hear voices.
HERZ: Officials from Eni did not respond to requests for comment. The company told Reuters in a statement that it shares the importance of addressing climate change and will continue investing in renewables to hit its net zero-emissions target by 2050. For NPR News, I'm Nat Herz in Predazzo, Italy.
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