After the promise of early snowfalls in some parts of Europe this autumn, the pattern of recent years resumed with rain and sleet taking over.
At the ski resorts of Morzine and Les Gets in the French Alps, heavy rains delayed the full opening of resorts until two days before Christmas, leaving the industry and the millions of tourists planning getaways staring hopefully skyward.
But no amount of wishing and hoping can overcome the existential threat to Alpine skiing, a $30 billion industry and the most popular ski destination in the world.
The science is clear and laid out in carefully considered, peer-reviewed reports. The most recent, this year, warned that with warming of 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, 53% of the 28 European resorts surveyed would be at very high risk of scarce snow.
Scarce snow is defined as the worst coverage observed on average every five years between 1961 and 1990.
If the world reached a temperature of 4 degrees Celsius, 98% of resorts would be at very high risk of scant snow cover.
Another study has found that snow cover in the Alps has declined ‘unprecedentedly’ over the past 600 years, with the duration of cover now shortening by 36 days.
Some are responding by clinging to the idea that skiing will and can survive if global temperatures stay within the limits of the Paris Agreement and if the industry adapts.
But this year, dissatisfaction over the lack of action to ensure the sport’s survival by the International Ski Federation (FIS) came to light.
The FIS was at the center of a climate row in 2019 when Gian Franco Kasper, its then president, came out as a climate denier in an interview, arguing that he would rather mingle with dictators than deal with environmentalists.
He then left and was replaced by Johan Eliasch. But that hasn’t eased the federation’s tension.
This year, 500 professional winter sports enthusiasts published a letter calling for greater climate action by the FIS. They highlighted a competition schedule that forced skiers to fly back and forth across the Atlantic Ocean from week to week, creating unnecessarily large environmental footprints, and called on the federation to open the season later and end it earlier to respect the changing climate .
This was followed in October by a petition calling on the federation to do more to tackle climate change, which has attracted more than 35,000 signatures.
The campaign wants the FIS to publish its own environmental impact with full transparency, push back the racing calendar by at least a month to respect the changing climate, reduce air travel requirements and use its political influence to advocate for climate action to a government body. level.
The FIS said that as a signatory of the UN Sports for Climate Action Framework (UNFCCC), it has committed to reducing CO2 emissions by 50% by 2030. “We are working on a sustainability plan in which we will collect as much data as possible in the coming years. next winter season to provide the most accurate estimate of our CO2 footprint.
“We have postponed the start of the season by a week and will continue to monitor closely whether we should start the season later.”
Dom Winter from Protect our Winters UK, who is behind the petition, said science shows the death of skiing is not inevitable if global emissions are reduced, and this motivates climate action in the winter sports community. “The future of winter sports depends on how well we reduce emissions in the coming decades,” Winter said.
He added: “Especially at 2 degrees Celsius, the lower resorts would be in big trouble. But there will still be places with natural snow in the Alps, so higher resorts could survive. The concern is how expensive and elitist they can become.”
Small amounts of snowmaking would help keep some resorts running, he said, especially those at lower elevations. But large-scale snowmaking will never replace real snow because it is too expensive and uses too much energy and water.
According to the latest study, using snowmaking to achieve 50% snow cover on the slopes reduces the number of European resorts at high risk of snow cover loss to 27% at 2°C and 71% at 4°C.
Although the same study shows that emissions from artificial snow production are small, accounting for only 2% of resorts’ total emissions, the use of artificial snow on a large scale poses energy and water consumption problems.
A study by the University of Basel has found that resorts below 1,800 to 2,000 meters would have to abandon their lower slopes and increasingly rely on artificial snow to keep only their higher slopes open.
The impact of using artificial snow for up to 100 consecutive days would increase water consumption by approximately 540 million liters of water and pit the resorts against local communities due to competition over water use.
According to the study, water consumption in the French Alps could increase ninefold by 2100 due to this reliance on artificial snow.
The federation said that only by using carbon offsets would it be possible to meet the 1.5c target of the Paris Agreement; and to that end it established the FIS Rainforest Initiative.
So while some are pushing for the industry to do more to adapt to keep the sport alive, others are working to embrace a new future rather than focusing everything on one sport.
In Morzine, non-profit sustainability group Montagne Verte is working at a grassroots level to support a transition to a low-carbon future in the area.
Cécile Burton, managing director of Montagne Verte, said: “Temperatures in the Alps are rising at more than twice the global average and that is not good news for an industry dependent on snow.
“Our approach is to focus on four-season tourism in the valley and to make the valley and the mountains a place where you can live all year round.
“There is life after skiing, but we have to adapt and imagine what our future will look like. This is an area where you can climb, mountain bike, hike or simply enjoy the surroundings all year round.
“We need to value other times of the year more, not just from an environmental and sustainability perspective, but also from a human perspective, because if you want to live somewhere all year round, you have to have work all year round.”
In addition to working to envision and support a new future, the collective works with local politicians and industry to push for policies that reduce emissions.
Most emissions from skiing come from tourist flights to the resorts, car traffic in the resorts and energy consumption in the accommodations. That’s why Montagne Verte is working to convince politicians and companies to move to car-free resorts.
The group recently took eight local mayors to the car-free resort of Zermatt in Switzerland to investigate whether Morzine could follow where that resort had led.
The group has also managed to encourage 100 businesses to become part of an Alpine Express pass which offers discounts on snow passes, ski guides, spa massages and yoga to people traveling by train to their holidays.
Al Judge, president of luxury chalet vacation company AliKats, is trying to adjust to the day the snow ends.
“We want to shift the focus of our season away from winter skiing,” Judge said. “Summer is our second biggest season, but we are trying to focus on getting stronger demand for spring and fall vacations so that when the snow stops, we have adapted to be a four-season business.” all year round.”