United Nations Teams Up With Snowsports' Governing Body

The announcement marks the first time the WMO—part of the United Nations—has partnered with a sports governing party. The partnership will go into effect ahead of the 2024/2025 ski season and initially last five years with the possibility of a future renewal.

Each year, the two partners will work together to produce initiatives, some of which are already planned, including a November 7th webinar with 137 National Ski Associations discussing the impacts of climate change on snowsports. 

“The climate crisis is obviously far bigger than FIS—or sports, for that matter: it is a genuine crossroads for mankind. It is true, though, that climate change is, simply put, an existential threat to skiing and snowboarding,” said Johan Eliasch, the president of the FIS. “We would be remiss if we did not pursue every possible effort that is rooted in science and objective analysis.”

A glut of research suggests that climate change will threaten skiing and snowboarding as we know it. One study published in Nature Climate Change found that after studying 2,000 European ski resorts, over half could be at very high risk for snow supply without snowmaking, based on different global warming scenarios. According to Meteoswiss—the Swiss federal office of meteorology and climatology—alpine glaciers in Switzerland have shrunk in volume by about 60% since 1850.

“Retreating glaciers, reduced snow and ice cover, and thawing permafrost are having a major impact on mountain ecosystems, communities, and economies and will have increasingly serious repercussions at local, national, and global levels for centuries to come,” said WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo.

In the fall of 2023, the FIS faced scrutiny after the snowsports-focused climate advocacy group Protect Our Winters (POW) shared a petition demanding that the FIS take stronger climate action.

“It is clear that FIS has done far too little to be the climate leader we need at this critical time,” reads a passage from the petition, which garnered over 37,000 signatures. “The Federation, event organizers, and host destinations must act as role models and show that they take the current challenges seriously.”

In response, the FIS published its own strongly-worded letter, calling the petition “highly unattractive” and listing several climate efforts the FIS participates in, including becoming a signatory of the UN Sports for Climate Action Framework (UNFCCC).

Several months later, in January 2024, FIS announced the release of a new Impact Sustainability Programme, which drew praise from POW. 

In a social media post, POW called the Programme “a huge step forward in climate action by the federation.” According to POW, the Programme addressed several complaints raised by the 2023 petition and shared that it had agreed to begin working with FIS going forward.

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