38 years ago, representatives from 46 countries around the globe came together to find a solution to the climate crisis. Alerted to an issue discovered by scientists 13 years previously, the representatives of these nations worked together swiftly and with purpose to create an international treaty to combat a major environmental issue. The treaty was signed by all 46 participant nations and would later go on to be one of the few universally ratified treaties, with all 198 UN nations and organisations agreeing to the protocol. Within 10 years the work had started. It took 30 years to see the effects, and we are only now beginning to see the true success of this global environmental action. What was the issue? Not climate change (first identified in 1901, called the ‘greenhouse effect‘), but the depletion of the Ozone layer.
The Montreal Protocol, as the treaty was named, is not spoken of often these days, but it represents two things: the outstanding benefit that science-led-policy can have on our world; and the success we experience when all nations can work together towards a common goal.
A hole in our Ozone layer?
To anyone living in the Southern hemisphere the weakness in the Ozone layer (an area in our atmosphere between 15 and 35 km above the Earth’s surface) is an important fact. This layer of our atmosphere, with a dense concentration of Ozone molecules, deflects a large portion of the harmful UV radiation from our Sun. This radiation has several negative impacts on life on our planet, from destroying the photosynthesizing ability of carbon-storing marine phytoplankton to increasing the rates of skin cancer, eye cataracts, and genetic and immune system damage in humans and other animals, and the filtering effect of the ozone layer has long been considered a critical factor in the development of life on our planet. Thus it was with concern that in 1974 atmospheric chemists Mario Molina and F. Sherwood Roland identified that a common chemical in everyday life at the time, chlorofluorocarbons or CFCs as they were publicly called, were damaging the ozone layer by reacting with the ozone molecules (O3), thereby destroying their ability to absorb the harmful UV rays.
In the years surrounding the establishment of the Montreal Treaty, several studies were undertaken to better understand this threat. The ‘hole’ in the Ozone layer is less of a hole and more of a thinning of the ozone that exists at stratospheric levels, concentrated in the Southern Hemisphere over Antarctica in part due to the more common formation of Polar Stratospheric Clouds. As with all Earth’s systems there is a natural variation in the thickness of the Ozone layer, but what became swiftly clear to the atmospheric researchers studying this issue, was the catastrophic effect that human-produced compounds were having on that natural variation. As the natural fluctuation combined with the human-produced chemicals, countries closest to South Pole; Australia, Chile, New Zealand, South Africa, and Argentina, started to experience increased threats from UV exposure, such as above-normal skin cancer rates. This was clearly an urgent issue, needing an urgent solution.
A bold and courageous global effort
In a move that may feel miraculous in our current era of political division and science denial, the global community swiftly came together to act. In 1987 the first step was taken with the adoption of the Montreal Treaty on the 16th September in 1987. A valuable feature of the treaty was that timelines for the phase out of CFCs varied depending on the economic and technological development of the nation, with ‘more developed’ nations being held to a faster phase out of these materials than ‘less developed’ nations. This assessment of the varied challenges facing different nations was the first key to its success. The second key came in 1991, with the establishment of a Multilateral Fund to provide financial and technical assistance to so-called developing nations – acknowledging, even then, the need for more than talk when it comes to making environmental change, that actual funds are needed too.
A third key to success came from the continued integration of science led policy, with the addition of new human-produced compounds to the Protocol, with the phase out of use of hydrochlorofluorocarbons in the Montreal Amendment in 2007 and hydrofluorocarbons in the Kigali Amendment of 2016, both commonly used in refrigeration, air conditioning and foams.
Success through collaboration
It can be hard to see success in preventative action. How do you identify the approximately 400 million people per year who DON’T contract skin cancer as a result of these actions? How do you assess the quality of life of the approximately 63 million who retain their sight, due to fewer people suffering from cataracts? It is easier to report on failures than successes – death tolls and damage reports are things that we are all far more familiar with. But in an era of negative news, why not see these absences as the wins that they are?! New data released by NOAA at the end of November showed that the Ozone hole over Antarctica is at it’s fifth smallest area since 1992, a trend of reduction that is going to result in the human impact on the Ozone layer being almost entirely removed by the middle of this century. The hole is also breaking up sooner than before, meaning that even today the harmful effects of UV radiation are being much more limited than previous years. Paul Newman, a researcher at the University of Maryland and NASA, shared this startling fact “This year’s hole would have been more than one million square miles larger if there was still as much chlorine in the stratosphere as there was 25 years ago.”
This astonishing success could only have been achieved one way – by scientists and researchers, politicians and governments, economists, technologists, and countless millions of regular people working together to make change. And beside the recovery of our ozone layer, the reduction in use of CFCs and other chemicals has had a secondary effect – in the years since the Montreal Protocol was ratified, the UN report that “From 1990 to 2010, the treaty’s control measures are estimated to have reduced greenhouse gas emissions by the equivalent of 135 gigatons of CO2, the equivalent of 11 gigatons a year.” Under the terms of the Kigali Amendment, the additional restrictions could result in the prevention of greenhouse gas emissions that are the equivalent of up to 105 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide, meaning at least 0.5 degrees Celcius global temperature change by 2100 could be avoided. All through this one treaty.
Maybe this is the kind of lesson we could all take away at this time of year. Not only is it possible to take action on climate change, but we can be astoundingly successful when we do. Those actions will also have unexpected side benefits that we can’t even predict yet! For me, the message of the recovery of the ozone layer is clear. Working to achieve change in climate science is not pointless. We as a species can solve massive global challenges. Governments can work together for good. And, as the year turns, I think that is a message we all need.
