MILAN, Feb 3 (Reuters) - Environmental advocacy group Greenpeace has called on Winter Olympics organisers to end their partnership with Italian oil major Eni, warning that the group's fossil fuel operations undermine efforts to protect snow‑dependent sports as the climate warms.
The Milano Cortina Olympics will run from February 6-22 and state-controlled Eni is one of the premium domestic sponsors of these Games.
Environmental groups sayEni's activities contribute significantly to global warming, accelerating the loss of natural snow cover and glacier mass in the Alps and other winter sports regions.
"The Winter Olympics need snow, not fossil fuels," Greenpeace saidin a video showing an avalanche of black oil engulfing skiers and the Games' five‑ring symbol.
Eni said in a statement that it "shared the importance of addressing climate change" and would continue investing in the energy transition as part of its plan to reach net‑zero emissions by 2050.
Greenpeace and ReCommon, another environmental group, have brought a climate change case against Eni, which is ongoing.
RISING TEMPERATURES IN THE ALPS
Rising temperatures in the Alps, increasing at twice the global average according to specialist research group SLF, have already forced the closure of several Italian ski resorts and pushed organisers to rely heavily on artificial snow.
Campaigners argue that companies whose core activities contribute to global warming should not be showcased at events that depend on cold weather to survive.
"Polluters shouldn't get a podium at the Games. It's time for the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to drop oil and gas sponsorship," Greenpeace said.
Greenpeace says the IOC should follow the precedent set in 1988, when tobacco advertising was banned from the Winter Olympics, and phase out fossil fuel sponsorships entirely.
Contacted via email, the IOC said that the Games in Italy were planned with a strong focus on reducing their footprint and supporting regions staging events in adapting to climate change.
The Games "engage with a range of partners across different sectors, including those investing in technologies and solutions relevant to the global energy transition," it added.
According to data published by Greenpeace, the emission of carbon dioxide in a single year by Eni could melt enough glacier ice to fill 2.5 million Olympic swimming pools.
"So that's something that I mean, we cannot accept and
that's the reason we are pushing the IOC to drop this kind of sponsorship for this edition of the Games and the future ones," Greenpeace spokesman Federico Spadini told Reuters TV in an interview.
But ENI rejects that calculation, arguing that translating the CO₂ emissions of a single energy operator into a specific potential share of global glacial mass loss is "a simplistic and even misleading exercise".The company says the estimate fails to account for global demand for fossil energy and the role of governments in defining climate policies and allocating the resources needed for the transition.
(Reporting by Giselda Vagnoni, additional reporting by Karolos Grohmann and Iian Axon in MilanEditing by Keith Weir)
