Climate positive abracadabra: Brisbane 2032 climate discourses through greenwashing and coloniality discourse lenses

This study interrogates how climate narratives are shifting in the lead-up to the Brisbane 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Through discourse analysis of official public documents, three narrative shifts were identified: (1) climate positive abracadabra through to quiet removal of the climate positive Games pledge; (2) the reversal of initial infrastructure commitments to reuse existing venues to a new stadium on heritage-listed parkland; and (3) the rise of discourse duality, where celebratory civic pride coexists with reputational risk management narratives. Interpreted through a dual theoretical lens of greenwashing and coloniality, these shifts suggest that climate narratives operate less as enforceable obligations and more as flexible instruments of institutional legitimacy. Symbolic action and selective information disclosure appeared to weaken the connection between early climate obligations and subsequent operational planning. Likewise, enduring power asymmetries in mega-event governance uphold the IOC’s discursive authority in defining environmental responsibilities to hosts, while enabling host governments to reframe ecological priorities in ways that sideline alternative knowledge systems and democratic processes. Given climate discourses are a central tool of climate governance in sport mega-events, Brisbane 2032’s evolving discourse shows how climate narratives function as a governance mechanism privileging strategic ambiguity and narrative adaptability. This case illustrates how sustainability promises may fade from the policy landscape without appearing to fail, highlighting the need to trace climate narrative shifts and their role in enabling systemic drift in accountability in mega-event governance.