Protecting the Ozone Layer Versus Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Myths, Partial truths, and Some Fresh Perspectives
Given the increasing frequency of natural disasters linked to climate change, there is an urgent need to accelerate GHG emission reductions. One source of lessons is the Montreal Protocol, the remarkably successful international agreement to protect the ozone layer.[1] Based on a career of over 40 years working on both issues, I believe there are still lessons from the Protocol that could help address climate change.
The Montreal Protocol, signed in 1987, began as an agreement adopted primarily by a small group of industrialized nations to reduce use of manmade chemicals, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), thought to damage the ozone layer. The study of atmospheric chemistry was receiving increased attention in the early 1970s thanks to environmental concerns about high altitude aircraft. Two scientists at U.C. Irvine, Sherwood Rowland and Mario Molina, tested CFCs in their lab and found that catalytic reactions would result in a reduction in ozone, in turn allowing more dangerous ultra-violet radiation to reach the earth. Their findings were published in a short article in 1974.[2] The significance of their work was recognized by the award of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1995.[3]
