UN Will Help Green Russia's Sochi 2014 Olympic Games

At the signing ceremony in Moscow June 5, Theodore Oben, chief of the UNEP's Outreach Section, said, "I am sure the memorandum signed today will not only be a written commitment, but will guarantee that during the preparation and staging of Sochi 2014 great strides are made in environmental protection in Sochi and the Krasnodar Region."

Dmitry Chernyshenko, president and chief executive of Sochi 2014 and a Sochi native, said, "Signing this important Memorandum will help ensure Sochi 2014 is able to introduce Green Standards to every level of the Games' preparation and will ensure that the Organizing Committee continues to work with international environment experts to support this."

UNEP's Theodore Oben, left, and Dmitry Chernyshenko, head of the Sochi 2014 Olympics organizing committee after signing an agreement in Moscow.

The Sochi Olympic organizers say they plan to invest US$1.75 billion in energy conservation and renewable energy and offset the remaining greenhouse gas emissions from the use of electricity, air travel and ground transportation.

Other environmental initiatives include the development of green belts in the city and reforestation of the Sochi National Park.

Earlier this year, the Sochi Olympics joined UNEP's Climate Neutral Network, an initiative to promote global action and involvement towards low carbon economies and societies that includes countries, cities, multinationals, NGOs and other UN agencies.

A series of conferences will allow international experts to monitor and analyze key environmental indicators before and after the Games and environmental education is planned.

Sochi, situated between the Black Sea and the snow-capped Caucasus Mountains in Russia's Krasnodar Region, is renowned for its pristine setting.

In an effort to preserve this natural beauty, the city in 2008 followed UNEP's recommendation to move the bobsleigh and luge tracks away from the Caucasus nature reserve. This UNESCO World Heritage site is one of the only mountain areas in Europe that remains virtually untouched by human activity. In changing the venue, organizers stressed that they are committed to creating an "environmental legacy for the future of the region."

"We developed the Sochi 2014 environmental strategy and this will ensure that the ecological situation in the Krasnodar Region is enhanced for generations to come," said Chernyshenko at the signing of the agreement.

The organizers marked the signing of the agreement by planting trees in several locations in Russia as part of UNEP's Billion Trees Campaign, and effort to combat climate change. To date, more than four billion trees have been planted as part of the campaign, and UNEP has set a new target of seven billion trees by the end of 2009 - one for every person on the planet.

The day after Russian Olympic organizers signed the agreement with UNEP, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Kozak, deputy chairman of government, announced that a second cargo port at Sochi, viewed by residents as an ecological disaster in the making, will not be built.

When construction began last July in a densely inhabited lowland area, the industrial port was protested by local residents, local government, a local association of investors and property owners and the nonprofit group Environmental Watch on North Caucasus, EWNC.

The existing port at Sochi on the Black Sea (Photo by Esther Dyson)

"This is a very significant development because it removes the danger of building an ecologically dangerous unit on the Black Sea coast, which threatened the ecosystems of Black sea, ecological prosperity and the recreational resources of Sochi," EWNC said in a statement.

Not only did the port construction destroy the living environment of Sochi residents, EWNC said the residents were outraged that construction was begun without the necessary permits and even without the final project design.

They tried to "construct under the Olympic cover a cargo port for subsequent long-term commercial use," the group said, adding that the port project "opened the practice of the systematic illegal building in the implementation of Olympic projects."

"This is the great victory of the inhabitants and public organizations, showing that the active civil resistance to inadvisable and ecologically dangerous Olympic projects can bring fruits," the group stated.

But still unaddressed are the group's concerns that a road planned to access the Olympic Ski Complex on Psekhako Ridge would cross the Western Caucasus UNESCO World Heritage Site as well as its protected buffer zone.

The investor behind the road is the Russian state company Gazprom, the world's largest gas company. The ridge is the location of Gazprom's new mountain resort, ski slopes, ski lifts and buildings, as well as the Olympic Ski Complex. Construction of the Olympic Ski Stadium with operating facilities is scheduled for completion in 2010.

Environmental Watch on North Caucasus has appealed to the International Olympic Committee and United Nations agencies to block construction of the road. (ENS, May 29, 2009)

UNEP has become increasingly active as an environmental advisor for the greening of mass events. In partnership with the International Olympic Committee, UNEP has been helping to green the Olympic Games over the last few years - most recently the Beijing 2008 Games, for which UNEP undertook environmental assessments before and after the Games. UNEP also has signed an agreement with the organizers of Vancouver 2010 in a bid to help green the next Winter Games.

Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2009. All rights reserved.