The International Olympic Committee (IOC) wrote in a blog post that the pledge is widely seen as "an opportunity to accelerate the city’s transition to a more sustainable future."

Now that the Olympics are closed, organisers are planning to recalculate Tokyo 2020’s carbon footprint, with the aim of compensating more than their remaining emissions.

A final calculation on emissions is also set to be made after the Games conclusion, with predictions that these will be much lower than anticipated due to no spectators being present in any venues in Tokyo.

In January, the IOC said it planned to become climate positive by 2024, with a target of reducing its emissions by 30 per cent, in line with the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.

In March, Paris 2024 organisers pledged to deliver the world’s first climate positive Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Also that month the IOC announced that all Olympics from 2030 onwards must be "climate positive", meaning carbon emissions must be reduced in line with the Paris Agreement on Climate Change and more than 100 per cent of remaining emissions must be compensated.

Yesterday Tokyo and Paris were among five Olympic and Paralympic host cities represented at a Sustainable Recovery Tokyo Forum, hosted by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government.

During the forum, the cities pledged to "immediately address the climate emergency."

A report issued today by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned of increasingly extreme heatwaves, droughts and flooding across the world, saying "it is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, oceans and land."

The IOC blog post noted how events were switched to "mitigate the effects of rising temperatures and to protect athletes health", citing a decision in 2019 to move the marathon and race-walking events to Sapporo from Tokyo.

Organisers made two late adjustments to the competition schedule to move events to cooler times of the day.

The women’s marathon was brought forward by an hour on Saturday (August 7) to a 6am local time start in Sapporo, while the women’s football gold medal match on Friday (August 6) was moved from Tokyo to Yokohama, while its kickoff time was changed from 11am to 9pm.

"Climate change affects everybody on this planet," said Tokyo 2020 senior director for sustainability Yuki Arata.

"As a major global event, the Olympic Games have a responsibility to reduce emissions and be a catalyst for sustainable development."