Since the alarm that was launched in the eighties of the last century, the ozone layer has improved constantly as a result of the Montreal Protocol of 1989, an international agreement that helped to eliminate 99% of the chemical products that affected it, such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which were used as solvents and refrigerants.
The UN and the environment
The Organization says that action on the ozone layer has also been a weapon against the climate crisis: CFCs are also greenhouse gases and its uncontrolled use would have raised the global temperatures by up to one degree Celsius by the middle of the century, worsening an already disastrous situation in which the gases that warm the planet have not yet diminished.
“The ozone action sets a precedent for climate action,” said Petteri Taalas, secretary general of the World Meteorological Organizationwho presented the progress report, compiled every four years.
“Our success in phasing out ozone-depleting chemicals shows us what can and should be done urgently to move away from fossil fuels, reduce greenhouse gases and thus limit the temperature increase”.
planet Earth
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Commitment to the Earth
The unified global response to CFC management means that the Montreal Agreement should be seen as “the most successful environmental treaty of history and offers a encouragement for the countries of the world to come together and decide on an outcome and act accordingly,” said David Fahey, a scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration who was the lead author of the new assessment.
Progress hasn’t always been linear: In 2018, scientists detected a spike in CFC use, traced it back to China, and finally fixed it.
Meanwhile, the replacement of CFCs with another group of industrial chemicals, hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), has been problematic as HFCs are greenhouse gases and therefore a new international agreement was needed, reached in Kigali, to curb its use.
Source: Ambito
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