Ski chiefs join UN experts on climate change 'threat'

Ski and snowboard chiefs are to work with United Nations weather experts to address the "existential threat" to winter sports posed by climate change.

Last season, the International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS) cancelled 26 of its 616 World Cup races across all disciplines for weather-related reasons.

"Winter sports and tourism face a bleak future because of climate change," it said.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) last year warned only 10 countries will be able to host snow sports by 2040 because of the impact of climate change.

Now the FIS has signed a memorandum of understanding to work with the UN’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO) "to highlight the far-reaching impacts of rising global temperatures on snow and ice cover and to establish practical initiatives".

It is the first time the WMO has partnered with an international sports federation.

"Climate change is, simply put, an existential threat to skiing and snowboarding," said FIS president Johan Eliasch.

"We would be remiss if we did not pursue every possible effort that is rooted in science and objective analysis. This is what we are trying to follow and what is at the core of this promising partnership with the WMO."

"Ruined winter vacations and cancelled sports fixtures are – literally – the tip of the iceberg of climate change," added WMO secretary-general Celeste Saulo.

"Retreating glaciers, reduced snow and ice cover, and thawing permafrost are having a major impact on mountain ecosystems, communities and economies and will have increasingly serious repercussions at local, national and global level for centuries to come."

Next month, the bodies will host an event for all 137 national ski associations, venue managers and event organisers to look at the issue.

In 2015, world leaders committed to working to avoid global temperatures rising by more than 1.5C in the Paris Agreement.

The 1.5C target was agreed because of evidence that the impacts of a 2C rise could be more extreme and even be irreversible.

Last year, global warming exceeded 1.5C across an entire year for the first time, according to the European Union's climate service.

A 2023 study by French and Austrian scientists, external looked at 2,234 ski resorts in 28 European countries and found that more than half (53%) were at "very high risk for snow supply" under a 2C rise. This rose to 98% if temperatures were to rise by 4C.

MeteoSwiss, the Swiss federal office of meteorology and climatology, says the number of days with snowfall has halved since 1970, external at altitudes below 800 metres.

Its work has suggested warmer winters mean zero-degree temperatures are found at increasingly higher altitudes. The level now sits at around 850m above sea level but could climb to 1,500m without climate change mitigation.

More than 100 snow generators and 300 snow-making guns were used to cover the ski slopes at the Beijing Winter Olympic Games in 2022.