More than $15 million will be invested by the Madrid 2012 bid as compensation for the greenhouse gas emissions that will not be possible to avoid during the 2012 Olympic Games. The investments will take place both in the city of Madrid and the developing countries. That sum of money will be administered by the Organizing Committee of the 2012 Olympic Games, as it is explained in the bid book.

Today, the day that the Kyoto protocol comes into force, Madrid 2012 reassures its commitment with the organization of an Olympic Games with an overall zero emission of greenhouse gases.

Antonio Lucio, Environmental Director of Madrid 2012, believes that the great effort to face the climatic change “must be done putting the stress in the energetic efficiency and the use of renewable energies”. Lucio considers that, in order to reach this aim, it is necessary to act with measures like the “celebration of the first Olympic and Paralympic Games with a hundred per cent of renewable energies, which is one of Madrid’s bid main targets, as it is also to obtain the maximum European energetic mark (A grade) for all the Olympic Village buildings and other that will also be built for the Games”.

The Madrid 2012 Olympic Office knows the enormous responsibility that will fall on the city if it is chosen to host the Games, especially because Madrid would become a focal centre where the entire world will look to. The Spanish bid has been the first of the five candidate cities in establishing an environmental area and has been a pioneer in all the aspects regarding to this global preoccupation for the environment.

During the imminent European Indoor Athletics Championships, Madrid 2012 will carry on its campaign of good environmental practices in collaboration with the Spanish Athletics Federation.

This intention of organizing an Olympic Games respectful with the environment is not anything new: Sydney 2000 made a very big effort to reduce its emission of greenhouse gases. On their part, Salt Lake City 2002 and Torino 2006 stated that they would try to organize an Olympic Games with an overall zero emission of greenhouse gases.

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