Brisbane 2032 Olympics Quietly Ditches Legally-Binding Green Promises
They’ve done it again. While nobody was watching, Brisbane’s “groundbreaking” climate promises for the 2032 Olympics got quietly gutted.
Let’s cut the crap: Brisbane was meant to host the world’s first legally-mandated climate-positive Olympics. Now? That binding commitment has vanished faster than free beer at a footy match.
From Legal Requirement to “Maybe If We Feel Like It”
Back in 2021, when Brisbane scored the Olympics, officials were busy patting themselves on the back for making history. The Host Contract legally required the Games to be “climate-positive” – removing more carbon than they’d spew out.
But on December 7, 2023, the IOC slipped in an addendum that changes everything. Between April and May 2024, all parties signed off on removing every single “climate-positive” requirement from the contract.
What was once a legal obligation is now just “aiming at” being climate-positive. See the difference? One you have to do; the other you can chuck in the bin when it gets too hard.
And they didn’t even have the balls to announce it publicly.
The Smoking Gun
The evidence is right there in black and white. The original contract required “ensuring that the climate-positive Games action is positioned as a strategic priority.” The new version? They’re just “aiming at” these goals.
Same story with the Climate Action Plan. Originally it outlined “the actions to deliver climate positive Games” but now it’s just “actions aiming at removing more carbon.”
Small word changes, massive legal difference. One’s binding, the other’s wishful thinking.
Victoria Park: Where Promises Go to Die
Meanwhile, these climate backflips coincide with plans to bulldoze Victoria Park/Barrambin – Brisbane’s largest inner-city green space – to build a shiny new Olympic stadium.
This isn’t just environmentally dodgy; it’s a blatant breach of the Olympic Host Contract, which specifically bans permanent construction “in statutory nature areas, cultural protected areas and World Heritage sites.”
Remember when they said they’d achieve climate-positive status by “repurposing and upgrading existing infrastructure”? Yeah, that was a lie.
Same Shit, Different Olympics
If you’re shocked, you haven’t been paying attention. Olympic history is littered with environmental promises that turned to dust:
- Sochi 2014 trashed a UNESCO World Heritage Site
- Rio 2016 never delivered on cleaning up Guanabara Bay
- PyeongChang 2018 cleared ancient forests for ski slopes
Brisbane’s just following the standard Olympic playbook: promise the earth, deliver sweet FA.
Follow the Money
Being truly “climate-positive” would cost serious cash – tens of millions in carbon reduction and removal. By weakening the language, they’ve effectively binned that financial obligation.
Funny how environmental commitments always disappear when the bills arrive, isn’t it?
The BS Responses
When called out, both the IOC and Brisbane 2032 reps claimed they just changed the terminology “to ensure communications are transparent and easily understood.”
Give me a break.
If the commitment’s the same, why water down the legal language? You don’t change binding contracts for a bloody communications exercise.
What Happens Now?
With eight years till the Games, there’s still time to fix this mess. But it would require:
- Putting the legally-binding climate language back in the contract
- Ditching the Victoria Park stadium plan
- Creating actual transparency around climate targets
- Developing a real carbon removal strategy with teeth
Local environmental groups are already mobilising against the Victoria Park destruction. This climate commitment betrayal might just add fuel to that fire.
The Bigger Picture
Brisbane had a genuine chance to make Olympic history here. Instead, they’re following the same tired playbook – promise environmental revolution, deliver environmental vandalism.
When they were selling the Olympics to locals, the climate-positive vision was front and centre. So was upgrading existing facilities like the Gabba.
Now both promises are going up in smoke. The binding climate commitment is optional, and they’re swapping Gabba upgrades for concrete in precious green space.
Without massive public pressure, Brisbane 2032 will join the long list of Olympics that left host cities environmentally worse off than before.
The first casualty? Victoria Park. And it won’t be the last if we don’t call this out for what it is – a textbook bait and switch.
Welcome to the Olympics – where the only gold medal they reliably deliver is in greenwashing.
