Some of the world’s greatest winter sports athletes have called on the International Olympics Committee to stop taking fossil fuel industry money — including from Italian oil giant ENI, a “Premium Partner” of the 2026 Winter Olympics. “The time has come to question the ethical implications of … normalizing the connections between our sports and the detrimental effects of the product that [fossil fuel companies] sell,” reads a petition delivered yesterday to IOC officials in Milan, Italy, where the Games’ opening ceremony will take place tomorrow.
Burning oil, gas, coal, and other fossil fuels is the main driver of global warming, which is raising winter temperatures and reducing the snow cover that skiing and other winter sports require. Even despite the record snow and ice that have blanketed much of North America in recent weeks, winters are rapidly warming across much of the Northern Hemisphere, threatening not only the Olympics but also communities economically and culturally dependent on skiing and other winter recreational activities.
To date, the petition to the IOC and the International Ski and Snowboard Federation has attracted more than 20,000 signatories, including Alex Hall of the US, who won the Olympic gold medal in freestyle skiing in 2022; Helvig Wessel of Norway, the 2024 Freeride World Tour skiing champion; and Nikolai Schirmer, also of Norway, whose nonprofit Ski Fossil Free organized the petition and hand-delivered it to IOC officials on February 4; a full list of signatories is here.
Although neither the IOC nor ENI have yet commented on the petition, the IOC did purchase 2.4 million cubic meters of artificial snow to enable reliable conditions for events taking place in the Italian Alps town of Cortina d’Ampezzo. ENI, which has said it aims to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, announced in December that “90% of the fuels that Eni … will supply to power the Games will be derived from renewable feedstocks.”
February temperatures have warmed by 3.6 degrees Celsius (6.4 degrees Fahrenheit) over the 70 years since Cortina hosted the first Winter Olympics in 1956, according to new research from the scientific nonprofit Climate Central. Cortina now experiences 41 fewer freezing days per year than it did in 1956. Globally, only half of the locations deemed suitable for future Winter Olympics will have reliably cold temperatures by the year 2050, Climate Central found. “Unless we address human-caused climate change and the fossil fuel burning that we’re doing, the possibility of having Winter Olympics is literally melting away,” Kaitlyn Trudeau, a Climate Central scientist who conducted the research, said at a January 28 press briefing co-hosted by Covering Climate Now and Climate Central.
“People in my community aren’t discussing whether or not climate change is real… it’s very, very apparent when we look at the high mountains,” said Graham Zimmerman, a professional alpinist and director of athletic alliance for the nonprofit Protect Our Winters, which supported the petition drive. Zimmerman and a team were 7,000 meters (23,000 feet) up Pakistan’s K-2, the second highest peak in the world, when melting snow and ice forced them to shelter in place on a narrow ledge for 14 hours. “It’s an altitude where, generally speaking, you are putting on all of the puffy clothes to stay warm,” he said. “Instead, we found ourselves in temperatures of 42 degrees [F] in the shade, having to take shelter from avalanches and rock fall because the mountain was literally falling apart.”
Although amateur climbers, skiers, and snowboarders are not immune to such dangers, the greater risk for them is simply fewer opportunities to enjoy their favorite winter sports. “Climate Central data shows a steady decline in snowfall at nearly two-thirds of monitoring stations” in the US, Ben Tracy, a climate journalist on assignment for Climate Central, said in a TV report shown during the briefing (and available for TV stations to air free of charge). “For the ski industry, that meltdown means billions in lost revenue.” A resort Tracy visited in Idaho that normally would have 42 ski runs open had only one — and that one was open only because of costly artificial snow.
That winters are rapidly warming even as bitter cold grips much of the US may seem counter-intuitive to some people — “WHATEVER HAPPENED TO GLOBAL WARMING?” Donald Trump posted online — but scientists explain that weather is not the same thing as climate. “In a warming world, we’re still going to have cold snaps, they’ll just be less frequent,” Trudeau said. A good way to think about it, she added, is that “weather is [the clothes] you’re wearing today. Climate is the clothes you have in your closet.”
The unreliability of winters on a warming planet leads Rocky Anderson, former mayor of Salt Lake City, Utah, to emphasize the urgency of phasing out fossil fuels. Anderson was the mayor when Salt Lake City hosted the 2002 Winter Games, a role the city is scheduled to repeat in 2034. But during his interview with Tracy, he pointed to the majestic peaks east of the city and noted, “there’s almost no snow anywhere in those mountains,” adding, “I don’t think we’re going to see a Winter Olympic Games in Utah in 2034.”
From Us
CCNow Academy. Join our free three-month training program, comprising 12 live, interactive sessions from March to June. As part of a cohort of 40 journalists from around the world, you’ll learn about climate science, solutions journalism, how to spot disinformation, and much more. Apply by February 16.
Upcoming webinar: New US public opinion data. CCNow will co-host a one-hour webinar, “Americans Care About Climate Change More Than You Think,” about the newest ‘American Minds’ survey results with the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University. Learn more and register.
CCNow Basics: Covering Climate Across Beats. Though climate change intersects with every beat — from sports to health, from crime to agriculture — the connection is often unreported. Join us on February 19 for a free training, part of our CCNow Basics series, on how to identify and report climate stories, regardless of your beat. We’re hosting two sessions, to accommodate different schedules worldwide: 6am US Eastern Time (11am UTC) and 1pm US Eastern Time (6pm UTC).
Radar Clima: cubrir los incendios forestales. La última edición de Radar Clima, nuestro boletín en español para periodistas de todas las áreas, te trae claves, expertos y recursos para reportar un desastre climático cada vez más frecuente. Incluye datos clave, contactos de expertos y ángulos de cobertura para abordar una crisis que ya está transformando territorios y comunidades en América Latina y España. Échale un ojo a las ediciones anteriores y suscríbete para recibir el boletín cada dos miércoles.
Via Social
Jennifer McDermott shared how the Associated Press’s climate team plans to cover the 2026 Winter Olympics.
Noteworthy Stories
Climate-fueled loneliness. In India, droughts made more severe by climate change are making it harder for farmers to earn a living and, as a result, to find partners and marry. By Karan Deep Singh and Elke Scholiers for Deutsche Welle…
“Perfect storm.” Flooding in southern Africa over the last month, which has killed nearly 200 people, was fueled by climate change and La Niña, according to a recent World Weather Attribution report. By Tim Cocks for Reuters…
Licensing protected land. Around the world, oil and gas licenses have been issued on nearly 700,000 square kilometers of land protected by regulations or ongoing environmental efforts, according to “Fueling Ecocide,” an investigation led by the Environmental Investigative Forum and European Investigative Collaborations. By Alexandre Brutelle, Daniela Sala, and Yann Philippin for InfoAmazonia…
Underinsured. In 2025, Southeast Asia suffered $73 billion in total losses due to natural disasters, of which only $9 billion was insured, making this region one of the world’s least insured. By Angelica Ang for Fortune…
Quote of the Week
“This ranks among the darkest days in the history of one of the world’s greatest news organizations.”
– Former Washington Post executive editor Marty Baron, reacting to the lay-off of one-third of the staff at the storied news organization owned by multibillionaire Jeff Bezos
Resources & Events
Data journalism webinar. Oxpeckers Investigative Environmental Journalism will host a one-hour session on February 18 demonstrating how to use data in service of environmental journalism. Learn more and RSVP.
Jobs, Etc.
Jobs. Report for America is hiring 70 reporters in newsrooms across the US. Floodlight is hiring a Deputy Executive Director (remote). Canary Media is hiring a Development Director (remote). Climate Central is hiring an Associate Product Manager (remote).
Fellowships. The Metcalf Ocean Nexus Academy, which was created by the Metcalf Institute and Ocean Nexus, in collaboration with The Uproot Project, is accepting applications for a three-month fellowship, running from May to July 2026; apply by February 8. Wake Forest University is recruiting for its 2026 Environmental and Epistemic Justice Journalism Fellowship in London, England; apply by February 15. Report for America is hiring 70 fellows for their two-year program; apply by February 16. The University of Colorado at Boulder is accepting applications for its Ted Scripps Fellowship in Environmental Journalism; apply by March 1. The Center for Global Energy Policy at Columbia University is accepting applications for its Energy Journalism Fellows program; apply by March 2.