The world’s largest indoor ski slope opened in Shanghai on Friday, after China recorded its hottest August in 60 years, in a country that is the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases.
By 9am, temperatures were reaching 30°C on the Alpine-style square hosting the opening ceremony. But once inside the complex, the mercury was dropping well below zero.
In this country where the population is increasingly passionate about winter sports, visitors have swapped sunglasses and t-shirts for ski suits.
Shaped like a glacier and covering an area of nearly 100,000 square meters, L*SNOW Indoor Skiing Theme Resort is located an hour and a half from the center of Shanghai, in the Pudong district.
Inside, a chairlift, a cable car and a small train transport visitors to the complex’s four slopes.
At the top of one of the snowy slopes, snowboarder Jessica Zhang seemed unfazed by the news of yet another record high temperature this summer in China.
“I feel like there are ups and downs in temperatures – maybe every two years or so there’s a record year for heat,” she says.
China recorded the hottest August since 1961 this year, the national meteorological service announced, with an average temperature of 22.6 degrees.
– “Not bad at all” –
Much of the northern hemisphere, from Europe to Asia, has been hit by particularly strong heat waves in recent weeks.
From June to August, the three months of the northern hemisphere summer saw the highest global average temperature ever measured, already breaking the record set in 2023, the European Copernicus Observatory announced on Friday.
And climatologists have already predicted that 2024 will be the hottest year on Earth ever recorded due to global warming.
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China is the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, which scientists say are responsible for climate change, even though the country has become a leader in renewable energy in recent years.
He has promised to peak emissions by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060.
Global warming is gradually reducing the opening hours of ski resorts.
“In northern China, due to climate change, fewer people are taking part in winter sports” and “some ski resorts are having difficulties” due to high temperatures, notes Zhang Jin, a 48-year-old skier.
“Instead, we have a lot of inside tracks like that that open up and that are pretty good, I think.”
– Record Guinness –
Despite record temperatures, strong government support and growing interest in winter sports among the middle class have boosted China’s ski industry, especially since Beijing hosted the 2022 Winter Olympics.
China is the world leader in indoor skiing, taking half of the global top 10, according to Shanghai-based Daxue Consulting.
The L*SNOW Indoor Skiing Theme Resort was certified Friday by the Guinness Book of Records as the world’s largest indoor ski resort, ahead of the one in Harbin – also in China.
“There were no ski resorts around Shanghai before and no way to practice in summer (…) So I’m pretty happy,” snowboarder Cynthia Zhang told AFP before heading down the slope.
In August, a report by local authorities in Shanghai acknowledged that such projects “will inevitably consume a lot of energy.”
But he stressed that the new complex inaugurated Friday was built with the aim of maximizing energy reuse, thanks in particular to ice storage and a system for recovering waste heat, as well as large photovoltaic installations on the roofs.
Initially planned for 2019, the opening had been postponed several times.
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