JULY 29, 2024: They are using mostly existing stadiums and sports venues instead of building new ones, locating them as close as possible to the Olympic village to cut travel miles. They’re taking measures to cut food waste and single-use plastics and to offer local, plant-based food to slash the Games carbon footprint. One thing they got wrong, though, was expecting athletes to go without air conditioning in their rooms.

Instead of installing A/C to keep housing safe and comfortable for thousands of athletes staying in the Olympic village, organizers planned to rely on a geothermal system that pipes in cool water underneath the floors. But their assurances that the system was capable of keeping indoor temperatures about 11 degrees cooler than outdoors did not inspire much confidence during a year that’s on track to be the hottest on record.

The plan prompted concerns from many countries including the United States that runners, gymnasts, swimmers, and other athletes in the biggest competition of their lives would not get the rest and recovery they need to perform their best as temperatures reach the upper 80s and 90s. As Matt Carroll with the Australian Olympic Committee put it last year, We’re not going for a picnic.

On the other hand, Team USA has confirmed that it will bring its own air conditioning units for American athletes to use in their rooms in the Olympic Village at the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics. The news came after games organizers said no A/C would be provided in the accommodation.

The Paris Summer Olympics organizing committee has been determined to cut the carbon footprint of the massive sports event in half compared to previous Olympics. To do that, the Paris 2024 Committee told CBS News it had used innovative, eco-focused cooling solutions to keep the rooms athletes will sleep in cool for the games, which kick off on July 26.

Experts warned in a recent report that the Paris Olympics could be the hottest games in history. Average temperatures have increased approximately 5.5 degrees Fahrenheit since the last time the city hosted the Olympics.

It’s hard to think of anything more important than fighting climate change, and conservation has an important role in that battle. But organizers’ insistence on an A/C-free Olympics was unnecessarily austere and shortsighted — a case of good intentions gone too far. And it’s an odd position, given that France has a pretty low-carbon electrical grid due to most of its power coming from nuclear as well as experience with devastating heat waves, such as the ones that killed 5,000 people last summer and in 2003.