- Thirty years on, what is the Montreal Protocol doing to protect the ozone?
- Vienna Convention
- The Montreal Protocol: triumph by treaty
Thirty years on, what is the Montreal Protocol doing to protect the ozone?
Following the The 2019 ozone hole is the smallest on record since its discovery. How does the ozone repair and how long will it take? The Montreal Protocol has been successful in reducing ozone-depleting substances and reactive chlorine and bromine in the stratosphere. As a result, the ozone layer is showing the first signs of recovery. It is expected that the ozone layer will return to pre-1980s levels by the middle of the century and the Antarctic ozone hole by around 2060s. This is because once released, ozone-depleting substances stay in the atmosphere for many years and continue to cause damage. The 2019 hole is indeed the smallest since recording of its size began in 1982 but the ozone is also influenced by temperature shifts and dynamics in the atmosphere through climate change. In 2019, the stratosphere was particularly warm during the Antarctic winter and spring. The While there is a growing global demand for cooling systems for personal well-being and in the commercial sector, improving energy efficiency with low or zero global-warming-potential will be needed to meet needs while minimizing adverse impacts on climate and environment. Research and development have kept pace: equipment design has changed and improved with the ozone-depleting substances phase-out. At the Rome meeting, parties were made aware of an unexpected increase in global emissions of trichlorofluoromethane, or CFC-11. Why is that, and what is being planned to address it? The issue of unexpecte...
Vienna Convention
The Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer and its Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer are dedicated to the protection of the earths ozone layer. With 197 parties, they are the most widely ratified treaties in United Nations history, and have, to date, enabled reductions of over 97% of all global consumption of controlled ozone depleting substances (measured in ODP tonnes).
The Montreal Protocol: triumph by treaty
By Mario Molina, Nobel Prize Laureate in Chemistry and Durwood Zaelke, President, Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development Ozone depletion was the first human threat to the global atmosphere to be recognized. It was also the first to be addressed by the international community. The results have been truly remarkable. The Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, which celebrates its 30 th anniversary this year, can claim to be one of the most successful international treaties ever struck. It has fulfilled its original objective by putting the stratospheric ozone layer on the road to recovery. But its effects have not stopped there: it has also done more than any other measure to date to combat climate change. And it has achieved all this through a united, indeed unanimous, world community. The Montreal Protocol is the first and only treaty ever to have been ratified by every nation on Earth. This has happened not just once, but six times over, including the underlying framework convention, the protocol, and its four amendments. The ozone layer is healing, and is likely to recover in several decades. But that is only part of the Protocol's impact. In 1974, one of us (Mario Molina) and Sherwood Rowland published the results of a scientific study that concluded that chlorofluorocarbons – then widely used mainly as refrigerants and propellants – were migrating to the upper atmosphere and affecting the ozone layer which shields terrestrial life, ...
