IOC President Thomas Bach Says Climate Change Could Affect Timing of Future Olympics

The Games appear prepared to adapt to a warming world.

Aug 4, 2024; Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, France; Thomas Bach, president of the International Olympic Committee, during the Paris 2024 Olympic Summer Games at Le Golf National. / Michael Madrid-USA TODAY Sports

With breaking, skateboarding and surfing present, it's clear the Paris Olympics are not your grandparents' Olympics.

Unfortunately, these Games might not be your grandchildren's Olympics, either.

In a press conference Friday, International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach intimated the effects of anthropogenic climate change could have a say in the timing of future Games—with an eventual move out of Earth's traditional summer months not out of the question.

“If the climate change is continuing in a way that the experts are forecasting it then it will be very difficult to organize Olympic Games in summer, in August.” Bach said via Robert Livingstone of GamesBids.

Bach's comments come amid speculation that Saudi Arabia and Qatar—already two sweltering nations—may bid on future Olympics. The former fencer denied, however, that his comments on the timing of the Games related to those two nations.

"We have to sit together, and regardless of where the Games are taking place to see whether the calendar has to be adapted, adjusted to climate change and global warming and the same is already true for the Winter Games," Bach said.

The Los Angeles Olympics in 2028 are scheduled to be held in July, while the 2032 Games in Brisbane will be staged in July and August during winter in the Southern Hemisphere.