The 2024 Olympics in Paris have officially begun and like the rest of the world, we are watching. We love seeing these amazing athletes represent their countries for the gold and tracking the numbers on which countries are getting the most medals. But we also had a few other data points in mind this Olympics.
€1.4 billion could have gone to foreign aid instead of the Seine
A LOT of money and time went into making this year’s Olympic games happen. We understand that these are necessary costs to bring the games to life, but it’s worth putting some of that spending into context.
France spent €1.4 billion on the Seine’s cleanup project before the start of the Olympics. If that €1.4 billion had been added to France’s €10.4 billion foreign aid budget (also known as official development assistance or ODA), it could have been put towards providing countless people in countries that need it most with safe water to drink.
Watch this video from our team in France, who breaks this down more.
CO₂ emissions from spectator travel to the Olympics could fill billions of soda cans
The Olympics is a global event, so naturally, people from around the world are going to attend. But spectator travel to the Paris Olympics is estimated to emit 813,000 tons of CO₂. To put that into perspective, that’s the same amount of CO₂ in 332 billion cans of soda.
Those CO₂ emissions are also equal to – or more than – the entire emissions from some countries
Here are some interesting comparisons:
- Spectator travel to the Paris Olympics is equivalent to the carbon footprint of Sierra Leone, population of 8.6 million
- It’s nearly double the carbon footprint of Somalia, population 17.5 million
- It’s nearly 4x the carbon footprint of Guinea-Bissau, population 2.1 million
- And it’s nearly 6 times the carbon footprint of CAR, population 5.6 million
And the gold for Investing in the World’s Future goes to…
We’ll all be watching to see who takes home the gold for swimming, gymnastics, and break dancing (which is now an Olympic sport!). But we also wanted to know which countries are doing the most to contribute to our global problems like ending poverty, tackling climate injustice, and promoting global health.
Thankfully, our Policy team has those rankings, as measured by how much countries contribute to their foreign aid budgets.
In 1970, most countries agreed on a target of giving 0.7% of national income in aid. However, very few countries have achieved 0.7% since that time, and even fewer have maintained it. If all countries gave 0.7% ODA/GNI, there would be US$197 billion additional aid available.
