Rising Climate and Carbon Risks Challenge the Future of the Winter Olympics

LONDON — February 13, 2026 — Ronald Duncan, a Dundee-born Winter Olympian who represented Team GB at the 1988 and 1992 Winter Olympics, has warned that the future of winter sports is under serious threat from climate change, as the sport becomes increasingly dependent on artificial snowmaking. 

‘The Winter Olympics now only exist because we manufacture winter—that’s the reality,’ said Mr Duncan. ‘We still get good snow but what we’ve lost is consistency. Without consistency, winter sport doesn’t work.’ 

Mr Duncan learned to ski at Glenshee and later became the 1980 and 1983 British Men’s Downhill Champion, as well as Men’s Super-G Champion in 1991. He said recent heavy snowfall at Scotland’s largest ski centre should not be mistaken for recovery, following prolonged periods of uncertainty, cancelled lift days and increasingly unreliable winters. 

On the eve of the 2026 Winter Olympics, Mr Duncan warned the Games are increasingly reliant on industrial-scale snowmaking to remain viable—and that, in future, they may only be possible with extreme measures. ‘In future, the Winter Olympics might only be possible by putting a giant refrigerated dome over mountains,’ he said. 

Mr Duncan said the scale of warming is already measurable in host regions. A 2024 study found all 19 Winter Olympic host cities since the 1950s had warmed by an average of 2.7°C, while Climate Central analysis showed Cortina’s average February snow depth has declined by around 15cm since the early 1970s. 

He also pointed to the rising financial burden on resorts as temperatures increase. ‘Snowmaking has kept competitive skiing viable for more than three decades,’ he said, ‘but it’s becoming more difficult and expensive as temperatures rise.’ 

Notes

• Mr Duncan retired from competition in 1993 and said the impacts of warming became impossible to ignore in the years that followed, including visible glacier retreat in the Austrian Alps. 

• He cited historical fragility in winter conditions, including the 1976 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck, when Austria’s army transported snow from mountain passes to prevent cancellation. 

• He highlighted rising costs: in the 1990s, installing a single ski lift cost around £1 million; today, resorts face infrastructure costs in the tens of millions—much of it devoted to snowmaking to keep slopes operational. 

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