2026 JANUARY
MARKET REPORT
SHORT READ
| PART 2
Contents:
China’s Silk Road in the Arctic Region
Data Centers Became Casualty of Wars
El Niño is Likely to Influence Our Global Weather Pattern in this Summer
Germany’s Challenges
Artificial Intelligence is Becoming too Big to Fail
WEF is Saying that Artificial Intelligence is Becoming too Big to Fail
Something About Organ Transplant
What Happened at the World Economic Forum at Davos from January 16 to 23, 2026
Understanding Arctic – the Largest Island with the Least Population
Trump’s Policy Against Wind and Solar Farm
Italy’s De Minimis Policy on Low-Value Parcels
Trump’s Tariff Policy has Concerns from Heavy Equipment Makers
The U.S. Shipbuilding
Winter Olympics is Threatening by Global Warming
Written by Andrew Sia
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From the Desk of the Publisher
This writeup is a mix of everything, ranging for what is going on in the Arctic region, to the latest events like the World Economy Forum, the Winter Olympics, the mentioning of the war in Iran, the En Niño, and even a report about an organization playing the lead for the kidney transplant in the U.S.
We found out that the world is remaining challenging is we don’t find a way to coexist. We have found that:
– Ukraine has been under the attack from Russia since February 22, 2022. It is already four years now.
– Israel has been under the threat from Hamas since October 7, 2023.
– Now the latest war started by the U.S. and Israel against Iran was on February 28, 2026.
In fact, there have been continuous conflicts in recent years, and what we have mentioned are only the latest. We haven’t seen any intervention by the United Nations, and it is to our regret.
China’s Silk Road in the Arctic Region
China’s Polar Silk Road (PSR) is a framework for Arctic region embedded within its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) launched in 2017 for its Arctic Policy was formatted in its white paper in 2018. It positions China as a “near-Arctic state” with legitimate interests in Arctic shipping, resource development, and governance.
The Polar Silk Road was proposed by Xi Jinping with Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev with the initiative of “jointly build a Silk Road on the ice.” It is the BRI’s connectivity vision into Arctic Ocean which is on the Northern Sea Route along Russia’s Arctic coast. This Northern Sea Route offers a shorter, more direct shipping path between northern China and northern Europe, potentially reducing transit time by up to two weeks.
This allows China to have access to strategic and economic aspects:
– Economic diversification – Reducing reliance on chokepoints like the Strait of Malacca, Suez Canal, and South China Sea.
– Resource access – Potential natural resources, including rare earths in Greenland.
– Trade efficiency – Shorter voyages bring lower fuel costs, faster turnaround, and reduced emissions for container ships.
Furthermore, this led to China’s recently unveil of a conceptual nuclear-powered icebreaker in December 2025, capable of breaking ice up to 2.5 meters thick, signaling its growing ambitions in polar navigation and Arctic strategy. The vessel is intended to serve as a prototype for an expanded Chinese polar fleet. This time they are portraying it as a civilian activity other than any strategic plans, for instance they are saying that it is meant for promoting tourism and trade.
Historically, China’s development in specialized maritime technology has involved foreign acquisitions. China bought its first icebreaker from Ukraine in 1993 and subsequently began developing its own icebreakers.
A similar pattern occurred in naval aviation. China acquired an unfinished Soviet aircraft carrier hull from Ukraine in 1998 for $20 million through a shell company, claiming to turn it into a floating casino in Macao. The ship was eventually transferred to Dalian shipyard in 2002 and refurbished for a decade and commissioned as the “Liaoning” in 2012. Afterwards, it commissioned another two aircraft carriers, the “Shandong” and the “Fujian.”
These cases illustrated how post-Soviet industrial assets and military technologies were transferred during a period of economic transition in Eastern Europe. Ukraine, facing a financial strain after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, became a source of advanced industrial and defense-related equipment. It is important to distinguish between strategic transaction made during economic hardship and broader national character. States often made difficult economic decisions under structural pressures.
In the case of this nuclear-powered icebreaker, China has often been criticized by Western governments and corporations for reverse engineering and aggressive technology acquisition practices. In sections involving sensitive or dual-use technologies such as naval population, aerospace systems, and nuclear engineering, most countries exercise extreme caution because such capacities can significantly expand geographical reach.
We have also learned that when states under economic distress would transfer advanced technologies, this can bring short-term financial relief but produce long-term strategic consequences.
With China initiative of the Polar Silk Road in 2018, it has put China at a focal point of global competition in both economic pragmatism and geopolitical influence which can integrate into its broader foreign policy.
Data Centers Became Casualty of War – Bloomberg Businessweek, March 5, 2026
We read the report that three facilities have suffered damage from drone strikes sent by the Iranian military. In any conventional wars, infrastructures of the adversaries are often the targets — bridges, railways, airports, and refineries. This time the war unfolding across the Middle East, another target has been added to the list — data centers.
Iranian drone strikes have damaged three data centers operated by Amazon.com Inc. in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Israel and the U.S. have hit at least two data centers in Tehran. Attacks of these facilities can paralyze banks and government offices.
The data centers are providing data services viewed as nodes of state power rather than those neutral commercial assets. Since Russia launched its full-scale attack on Ukraine four years ago, it has repeatedly struck Ukraine’s information technology infrastructure.
American tech giants have flocked to the Persian Gulf region in recent years to take advantage of the area’s ample cheap energy and land. Most of their operations are run through partnerships with local data center companies. There are approximately 230 data centers that are built or in development in that region.
These facilities are used also for military operations and Amazon together with Google have a $1.2 billion contract with the Israeli government to provide cloud services and AI to companies including the Israel Defense Forces.
U.S. companies are not the biggest operators in the region. Khazna Data Center formed by Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund Mubadala and Microsoft Corp, and Saudi Arabia’s Center3, a subsidiary of the kingdom’s largest telecommunications company, has built nearly half of the nation’s data centers.
The U.S. Federal officials have been warning the Silicon Valley from its dependence on Taiwan. It is a tiny island, rules under the democratic country in the China Sea that produces 90% of the world’s high-end computer chips.
Taiwan has been considered as a breakaway territory belonging to China knowing China has plans to overtake it and this could choke the computer chips made on the island and bring the U.S. tech industry to its knees.
The two presidents, Biden and Trump, have both tried to persuade the industry to change. Biden introduced the CHIPS Act provided $53 billions in financial aides to improve the domestic semiconductor manufacturing, research, and workforce development. production of chips. The act aims to reduce reliance on foreign supply chains, strengthen national security, and creating manufacturing jobs in the U.S.
Trump’s threat in punitive tariffs is essentially to accomplish the same deed. Both efforts haven’t been able to achieve the goal as the U.S. tech industry has stubbornly refused to shift where it gets the chips which powers smartphones, laptops and the giant data centers that run artificial intelligence.
The concerns have worsened by recent live-fire drills conducted by the Chinese military in waters surrounding Taiwan. Imagine that at least 90% of the high-end chips are coming from Taiwan and if the island has been blockaded, and the capacity has been disrupted, it could lead to a disastrous situation.
El Niño is Likely to Influence Our Global Weather Pattern in this Summer – The Washington Post, March 9, 2026
New data is showing that there is the potential to become one of the strongest El Niño events on record. A typical El Niño effect is a warm stream of water in the equatorial Pacific Ocean influences those regions that can experience droughts, floods, and extreme heats. These relatively rare super El Niño events would happen once every 10 to 15 years on average. Normally it is between the months of July to September.
The extreme El Niño effect is caused by the sea temperatures in the key region of the Pacific Ocean getting warmer more than 2° Celsius above average. This will lead to a profound atmosphere response. The impacts can include the frequency and location of heat waves, locations of flooding downpours and droughts could arise, hurricanes may hit, ice concentrations in the sea may decline.
All these may result the Western U.S. to face a hotter than average summer, some tropical countries could face worse drought and extreme heat, more tropical cyclones could develop in the Pacific, but fewer in the Atlantic. This year’s El Niño may push global temperature to record levels, particularly in 2027.
US Defense Department meteorologist Eric Webb mentioned that because of the increasing concentration of greenhouses gases, the climate system cannot exhaust the heat released in a major El Niño event before the next El Niño comes. This can result the pushing of the baseline upward again. Therefore, a super El Niño in 2026-2027 can disperse more heat than other very strong events recorded in 1982-83, 1997-98, and 2015-16.
Meanwhile, Hawaii could encounter more tropical storms and hurricanes. Starting in the middle of the year, there will be more typhoons in the Western Pacific, including those across the Philippines, China, and Japan.
India’s monsoon will run from June to September with less rain than average.
Drought could also build up across Australia and Indonesia, parts of the eastern Africa and the Caribbean islands, and downpours will hit Peru, Ecuador, and Hawaii.
Droughts will be hard in Ethiopia, Somalia, Haiti, Central America, Papua New Guinea and Vietnam.
The good thing is El Niño may have a moderating effect on winter temperatures, as the northern branch of the jet stream is nudged farther north and frigid air less frequently ventures southward into the U.S.
Germany’s Challenges
In the recent visit of German Chancellor Friedrich Merz to China on February 25, he delivered a clear message to ask China to reduce subsidies to domestic manufacturers. This is very much in line with WTO’s recommendation to China to halve its industrial subsidies. Metz also asked China to rise its currency’s exchange rate, and to allow export for the critical minerals. He emphasized that these moves would help to strengthen their trade between the two nations.
Metz returned home with China’s pledge to order up to 120 new aircrafts from the European aerospace giant Airbus.
It is known that German companies have seen the profit eroded as China companies have gained market share. In fact, the same is happening globally for carmakers, chemical producers, and machinery manufacturers, that they have to compete with China. This has also resulted the loss of industrial jobs, and for an industrial country like Germany, this has been critical. Unlike the past decades, China was the key driver of Germany prosperity.
On the other hand, Germany’s population is projected to shrink by 5% within the next 25 years. Its demographic change will have a significant impact on all areas of the economy and society. The number of people aged 20 to 66 is projected to fall by 12%, while the number of pensioners is set to rise more than 20%. The government has already assigned about a quarter of its budget to support the pension system, and the trend is that this will grow.
By 2050, Germany’s population will fall more than 4 million to about 79 million. It is the lowest level since the early 1990s.
Its inflow of migrants by 2050 will also be significantly lower than forecast after the government has tightened its migration policy. It only attracted 225,000 net migrants than it expected earlier for 2025.
Its birthrate of 150,000 fewer in 2030 is also lower than expected.
On the transatlantic side, Germany has the uncertainty for going forward with the U.S. after Trump comes into power. We can’t pretend that there is without any problem as Trump administration attacks on its value with NATO and the EU. The U.S. is upending the Europe’s decades-long security architect to take up its military role.
Germany has the largest US service members — 50,000 of them including their families living in the Ramstein base, the largest outside the U.S.
Germany is now the largest military provider for Ukraine, after they have taken over the U.S. All these estrangement from the U.S. would have to be solved in a nicer way. Otherwise, the world will be divided, and this transatlantic relationship will need to come into agreement.
WEF is Saying that Artificial Intelligence is Becoming too Big to Fail – FT, January 20, 2026
This was the concern as raised during the World Economic Forum in Davos. IMF pointed out that the global economic expansion has been relying too much on the AI boom. It predicted the U.S. growth would outpace the rest of the G7 and forecast for 2026 is 2.4% and 2027 is 2%. Tech investment had surged to its highest share of the U.S. economic output since 2001.
The risks of AI gains in productivity and profitability can cause market correction. The repeat of the crush during the dot.com was worried.
IMF posted its outlook for 2026 global growth from 3.1% to 3.3%, and a slight slowdown in 2027 to 3.2%. This has been projected in despite of Trump’s threat of tariff of 10% unless he could get Iceland.
IMF continued to predict as the following:
– China will expand 4.5% in 2026, and 4% in 2027.
– Canada will expand 1.6% in 2026, and 1.9% in 2027.
– UK will expand 1.5% in 2026, and 1.5% in 2027.
– Germany will expand 1.1% in 2026, and 1.5% in 2027.
Global growth is forecasted at 0.3%, and in between 0.1% and 0.8% in 2027 in the medium term.
Something About Organ Transplant – New York Times, January 1, 2026
The National Kidney Registry (NKR) was founded by Garet Hil, whose 10-year-old daughter needed a kidney donation. When he tried to donate his kidney to her, he discovered that his kidney was not compatible. Eventually a matching kidney was found a couple of months later. The experience motivated Hil, an entrepreneur, to establish an organization that could transform the world of living organ donation.
The National Kidney Registration (NKR) was founded in 2007. The idea was simple but powerful: when a kidney from a relative or loved one is incompatible with a patient, the donor can contribute the kidney to a nationwide pool. Patients can then search within this pool of strangers to find the matching organ more efficiently.
Since its founding, NKR has enabled nearly 12,000 transplants through what are known as “paired donations,” These exchanges allow two or more donor-recipient pairs to swap kidneys so that each patient receives a compatible organ. The program has produced far more matches than many other public or private programs.
At the same time, the NKR has grown into a multimillion-dollar enterprise with considerable influence over the flow of donated organs. Some doctors have expressed concern that the stake in these lifesaving exchanges is too high to be managed by a private company without greater government oversight.
The organization operated as a nonprofit for more than a decade, and during that time it paid about $39 million for technology and other services to a company owned by Garet Hil. As the NKR expanded, it began charging hospitals with significant fees to access to its donor registry, and some of those costs are ultimately passed on to taxpayers through Medicare.
In 2023, the NKR commercial operations were sold to a new for-profit also owned by Garet Hil, making its financing less transparent. Today, about 40% of the U.S. transplant centers work with the NKR because of the speed and the quality of kidney matching system. The average wait time for a match through the registry is about two months, compared with several years on the national waiting list for kidneys from deceased donors.
It must also be acknowledged that the number of living kidney donations has remained relatively flat, even as the need for transplants continues to grow. Many patients have reported positive experiences with the NKR as they were able to find matches quickly. Only a small number of difficult-to-match patients have had to wait months after their loved ones donated to stranger through the exchange.
However, some hospitals have chosen to withdraw from the system because they noticed the NKR has found ways to profit off from transplant process. We have to admit that the broader system has never been perfect, and for decades, the U.S. government has made it illegal to sell human organs. Instead, it created a national waiting list intended to ensure fairness. Today, about 90,000 of those are waiting for a kidney transplant.
Kidneys from living donors generally last longer than those deceased donors. For most of its matches, the NKR relies on a sophisticated computer program that evaluates compatibility and many other medical factors. When a donor’s kidney doesn’t match any recipients in the registry, the organization can decide which hospitals to receive these additional kidneys, Typically, priority goes to hospitals that contribute the most donors to the network. Some doctors believe this practice may disadvantage patients outside the NKR network.
Unfortunately, it is not uncommon for patients to remain on dialysis for a year or longer, even after their beloved ones have donated a kidney to help someone else in the exchange system.
The NKR began in 2007 as a mission-driven nonprofit effect but has since evolved into a system with both nonprofit and for-profit components. Hospitals that rely solely on the government transplant system often depend mainly on kidneys from deceased donors, which are far fewer in number.
There may be no simple right or wrong in this situation. The need for kidneys is enormous, and every system has limitations. In many ways, the circumstances reflect a difficult reality: patients and doctors must work with imperfect systems because there are still not enough organs available for everyone who needs one.
Kidneys are the most in-demand transplant organ, followed by the liver in many countries, including the United States. Both are life-saving transplants, but their average lifespan after transplantation can be depending on many factors — donor type, patient health, medications, and rejection risk.
A kidney transplant can last a longer time now, especially with modern anti-rejection drugs. From a living donor, it can last on average 15-20 years. From a deceased donor, the average is 10-15 years.
Writing this report reminds me of a close friend who has been waiting for a kidney transplant for two years. Three times a week he wakes up early for dialysis before going to work. Behind every statistic in the transplant system there are people living through these long and uncertain journeys.
What Happened at the World Economic Forum at Davos from January 16 to 23, 2026
World Economic Forum was founded on January 24, 1971, by a German engineer Klaus Schwab. This year it was the 56th World Economic Forum and took place from January 16-23 in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland focusing on the theme “A Spirit of Dialogue”. It was amidst highly geopolitical tensions, over 3,000 participants, including 65+ heads of state, 400+ political leaders, and 850+ CEOs, gathered to discuss global cooperation, economic growth, and AI.
The reality was an event dominated by Donald Trump and it was said that he took Davos hostage although the key themes were focused on navigating a contested world through dialogue, with key discussions on AI, green energy, and economic resilience.
Geopolitical attentions were focused on transatlantic relationships, particular concerns were the U.S. and NATO partners, but significant attention was drawn into the threats of Trump’s threat to use force to take control of Greenland or to impose more tariffs on Europe if he couldn’t get what he wanted. Trump’s chaotic behavior extracted the more critical issues such as Ukraine and climate change.
The President of European Central Bank Christine Lagarde walked out after combative remarks about Europe by U.S. commerce secretary Howard Lutnick.
Global climate movement was once the center of The World Economic Forum, ended taking a back seat this time.
In the end, Trump ruled out using military force to take Greenland. He backed away from earlier threats to impose tariffs on European allies. Greenland remains under Danish sovereignty, but possibilities to expand U.S. military access in Greenland. He also agreed to cooperate with NATO on Arctic defense.
The world also found out during that trip Trump was surrounded by sycophants. What else is new about this?
Understanding Arctic – the Largest Island with the Least Population
The Arctic is believed to hold enormous untapped resources according to the United States Geological Survey. The region may contain:
– About 13% of the world’s undiscovered oil.
– About 30% of the world’s undiscovered natural gas.
– Large deposits of rare earth minerals.
As Arctic ice continues to retreat, new sea routes are open and that could change global shipping routes. The most important is the Northern Sea Route, which runs along the Arctic coast of Russia. This route can reduce travel distance between Asia and Europe by 30-40% compared with the traditional route through the Suez Canal.
The Arctic is also strategically important for defense. Greenland hosts the Pituffik Space Base, one of the most important early-warning radar stations for detecting missile launches. And because the Arctic sites between North America, Europe, and Russia, it is a critical location for missile detection systems, satellite tracking, submarine operations and long-range air defense. For these reasons, countries like the U.S., Russia, and China are interested and they are actively involved in the Arctic region.
This makes Greenland itself becoming one of the most important territories in the world during the next 50 years. We have to know that Greenland is the world’s largest island covering 2.1 million square kilometers with the least densely population of approximately 56,000 inhabitants. 80% of its land is covered by a permanent ice sheet.
Trump’s Policy Against Wind and Solar Farms – New York Times, February 6, 2026
A week before the 2024 election, Idaho’s largest electric utility stuck a 35-year deal to buy power from a wind farm under development in Wyoming. The Jackalope Wind project with an area of Chicago, with hundreds of wind turbines generating clean electricity by 2027. With Trump coming to the office, the project was stalled for months, and now the project is now effectively dead.
Similar stories are unfolding nationwide. The administration is also stopping projects for solar power as well. More than 60 large wind and solar farms under development on federal lands are being challenged. This also happen on private land that require federal consultations.
It is going for cThere are five wind farms in the Atlantic Ocean that Trump is trying to stop can collectively produce 5,800 megawatts, enough to power 2.5 million families. There are 73,000 megawatts of solar projects on land are currently at risk from political interference according to the Solar Energy Industries Association.
There is the Engie North America which develop wind, solar, battery, and gas projects. Its chief executive, David Carroll, estimated roughly 40% of Engie’s planned renewable projects could be affected by the federal permissions.
Most of the wind and solar projects are affected by the slowdown for permits were expected to come online in 2027, without them the country could face a shortage of power and consumers can expect a higher electric bill.
On the other hand, White House is saying that the policy now is to reverse the unfair, preferential treatment of green energy sources like wind and solar, instead to promote oil and gas as the country is the world’s biggest oil and gas producer. It went further to phase out federal tax credits for wind and solar projects.
Trump disrespectfully call the wind turbines as “windmills” to show also his ignorance.
Restrictions for operating the wind farm have extended to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to gauge concerns that might harm protected species like bald eagles or desert tortoises. Wind farms need clearance from Federal Aviation Administration. It is making the project unworkable as more obstacles are emerging.
This crackdown on renewable power comes as America’s demand for electricity is surging for the first time in decades. This makes the adding of wind and solar power an important near-term option. There are long waits for natural gas turbines and new nuclear reactors are years away.
Trump made himself very clear that his goal is not to let any “windmill” be built.
Italy’s De Minimis Policy on Low-Value Parcels – FT, January 27, 2026
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government introduced a €2 tax on parcels worth up to €150 arriving in Italy from outside the EU to stop the surge of goods from China retailers such as Shein and Temu. This levy applies to packages that arrived in Italy after January 1.
It resulted the complains from Italian logistics companies and airport operators that the tax has already led to a sharp drop in the number of small packages handled by their logistics networks. Flights from outside Eu are landing in other airports in the bloc to dodge the fee.
At the first instance, Rome projected that it could raise €122 million this year and €245 million subsequently. But according to the Italian customs agency, the number of low-value packages arriving in Italy from outside the EU between January 1 and January 20 was 36% lower than in the same period last year. And at this time, the flights usually deliver the packages at Malpensa airport are now diverted to other airports in Europe in Belgium, Amsterdam, and Budapest. The EU rule is that once the goods arrive the single market, they can be delivered to other countries without duties, and in this case the tax in Italy can be avoided.
So that we know, the EU is due to start collecting the €3 customs duty on low-value parcels from July 1. Right now, Meloni’s advisers are not pointing the government in the correction direction.
Trump’s Tariff Policy Has Concerns from Heavy Equipment Makers – New York Times, March 3, 2026
The U.S. Association of Equipment Manufacturers released every three years at the triennial expo that the total sales and indirect economic output from the heavy equipment sector was $902 billion in 2025, a slight contraction from $905 in 2022. There is a similar cooling trend in the labor with direct employment falling to 421,000 workers, from 423,000 three years ago. Direct sales were basically flat at $265.76 billion down from $266.64 billion in 2022.
The association pointed out that there are several reasons for woes in the heavy equipment sector — high interest rates, phasing out of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and tariffs. Although the Supreme Court struck out some tariffs last month, but tariffs on steel and aluminum remain in place.
During the Biden administration, fundings were available through infrastructure bill and the CHIPS and Science Act boosted building of roads, bridges, and factories.
Although the heavy equipment sector is still intact, but it is cheaper to have them built in Asia and pay for the tariffs to ship equipment to the U.S. and take advantage for the labor and the material cost.
About 30% of the heavy equipment made in the U.S. is exported. But the association was complaining that countries with the steepest declines are the UK with 35%, Germany about 29%, and South Korea 26%.
From what I have seen from this report that the U.S. heavy equipment sector is doing a lot better than the other industries. It is also important to know what states they are concentrated. You can find them all concentrating in the red states.
The U.S. Shipbuilding – FT, March 3, 2026
According to the U.S. Maritime Action Plan (MAP), its president’s ego is more than anything else,. He wants to build a “golden fleet” of hyper-expensive warships knowing that today’s maritime risk is rising as those cheap drones and missiles can destroy the most expensive military hardware. We have seen examples from the war with Iran.
It is not wrong for the U.S. to catch up with its shipbuilding and the revitalization of the maritime knowing that China, over the past 20 years, built an enormous fleet of dual-use military and commercial vessels at the ratio of 200 to 1.
China has the huge advantage as 80 to 90% of the global goods are moving by sea.
MAP, the taskforce of shipbuilding has proposed a budget of using designs of existing commercial or government vessels that can be adapted to multiple agency mission’s need with minimal modifications. In another word, more flexible dual-use vessels better adapted to the changing nature of modern warfare, as well as modern commercial fleets.
MAP also suggested that the U.S. support of European Arctic allies, and the U.S. secures the North American Arctic region with Canada. Although we are amidst the hot war with Iran, Trump’s ego is to build a fleet of battleships and spend $15 billion on one single battleship. That keeps us wondering where is the money coming from?
Winter Olympics is Threatened by Global Warming – FT, February 7, 2026
The 2026 Winter Olympics, officially known as Milano Cortina 2026, was being held in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, from February 6 to 22, 2026. It was the first Olympic Games hosted by two cities with events spread across multiple venues in the Italian Alps and Lombardy region.
In Cortina, there was almost 20% less freezing days than normal years. Temperature for February was an average of 3.6° Celsius hotter than 70 years before. Climate change has reshaped winter sport.
Heavy snow fell on the key venues disrupted training. Analytic figures from the National Snow and ice Data Center shows many of those main mountain ranges in Europe — the Alps, Carpathians and Apennines — have experienced a reduction in snow cover of 50% or more in the past 20 years. This has resulted the research carried out for the International Olympic Committee (IOC) that the number of viable host countries for the Winter Olympics could be reduced just to 20 by 2040.
This year at the Alpine area a 9.5% decrease in snow cover days where the snow is deep enough for winter sports. During this Winter Olympics, Italy produced 90% of its ski slopes by using artificial snow. In the Apennines, there was too little snow and too warm to operate the snow cannons. For the Games, large reservoirs have been created to provide water for snow making.
The Games also crated additional greenhouse gases, and the Winter Olympics were responsible for between 1 million and 1.5 million tons of carbon dioxide.
Although Milano-Cortina 2026 often wanted to be known as a return to the traditional Alps, but this time it was a technologically manufactured reality.