Healing the Ozone Holes Could Help Lower Earth's Temperature

MONTREAL, Quebec, Canada, September 17, 2007 (ENS) - Refrigerating and air conditioning today employ hydrochlorofluorocarbons, HCFCs - chemicals that by international agreement have replaced other chemicals known to damage the Earth's ozone layer. But now HCFCs have fallen out of favor because they too deplete the ozone layer and also act as greenhouse gases contributing to global warming.

Today in Montreal, representatives of 191 governments opened a four day conference at which they will try to speed up the phaseout of both production and consumption of HCFCs. They are seeking solutions that can both protect the ozone layer and help to stabilize the climate.

The largest ever Antarctic ozone hole, recorded on September 10, 2000, when it covered 11.5 million square miles. (Image courtesy TOMS science team NASA)

Hosted by Environment Canada and the UN Environment Programme, UNEP, which is responsible for the Montreal Protocol, the seminar was held at the Palais de Congrès in Montreal, Canada, in advance of the conference negotiations.

Participants from governments, international organizations, business and NGOs took part in the keynote presentations and panel discussions on the history, development and implementation of the Montreal Protocol, ozone science, and links with other environmental issues such as climate change

The chemicals originally phased out by the Montreal Protocol are ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons, CFCs, and the protocol is considered a great success because industrialized countries have met their deadlines for CFC phaseout.

Developing countries continue to transition away from CFCs as their markets for refrigeration and air conditioning grow, and at the conference they will be seeking increased financial assistance to meet the requirements of the Montreal Protocol.

Achim Steiner, UN undersecretary general and UNEP executive director, said the Montreal Protocol is "without doubt one of the most successful multilateral treaties ever."

UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner (Photo courtesy ENB)

"If governments adopt accelerated action on HCFCs," he said, "we can look forward to not only a faster recovery of the ozone layer, but a further important contribution to the climate change challenge."

Under the Montreal Protocol, use of HCFCs is scheduled to end in developed countries by 2030 and in developing countries by 2040.

But scientists and governments are studying options for bringing forward the final phase-out by approximately 10 years, prompted by research indicating that acceleration could deliver cumulative emission reductions of 18 to 25 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide.

Annually, these reductions could equal over 3.5 percent of all the world's current greenhouse emissions.

By comparison, the Kyoto Protocol aims to reduce the emissions of most industrialized countries an average of 5.2 percent from 1990 levels by 2012.

At the 20th anniversary event, the man who shared the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on the fate of chlorofluorocarbons in the atmosphere said the control of ozone depleting chemicals has already helped to limit global warming.

Dr. Mario Molina (Photo courtesy ENB)

Over its 20 year history, the Montreal Protocol is considered to have achieved success in controlling the ozone-depleting substances that have eroded holes in the Earth's stratospheric ozone layer - first over Antarctic, and more recently over the Arctic as well.

Molina said, "The Protocol established a crucial precedent by showing that global environmental problems could be solved if there were global cooperation among governments, industry, the scientific community and environmental organizations."

Canada's Environment Minister John Baird said, "The original Montreal Protocol stands as a model of the tremendous results that can be achieved when the international community works together to tackle environmental problems."

"As the proud host country of this meeting, Canada believes that more can be done, and so we support an accelerated phaseout of HCFCs," said Baird. "We will work with the countries who have signed the protocol to help make this happen, and we will be pushing the international community to build on the success story that began here 20 years ago."

Nine countries, both developed and developing, have submitted six different proposals on the accelerated phaseout of HCFCs for consideraton at the conference..

The final benefits of an accelerated freeze and phaseout of HCFCs may prove to be even higher than the 18 to 25 billion metric tons, according to a new report from the Montreal Protocol's Technology and Economic Assessment Panel that is designed to inform this week's negotiations.

Close to 38 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide might be avoided annually if the acceleration is accompanied by the recovery and destruction of old equipment and insulating foam and improvements in energy efficiency, says the panel.

For example, a faster switch to alternatives to HCFCs may stimulate technological innovation, including a more rapid introduction of energy efficient equipment that in turn could result in greater greenhouse gas emissions reductions.

Under some of the accelerated phase-out scenarios, ozone levels could return to healthy pre-1980 levels a few years earlier than current scientific predictions.

Arctic ozone hole, September 2006 (Image courtesy NASA)

The most recent study by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA, in 2006 predicted that the ozone hole over the South Pole would begin shrinking significantly by 2018 and the full return of the protective ozone layer would be complete in about 60 years.

"The goal now is to ensure that CFCs and other emissions continue to fall to below the levels that produce an ozone hole," said Anne Douglass, the deputy project scientist for NASA's Aura satellite, which monitors the chemical make-up of the atmosphere. "This won't happen until about 2070."

The company that led the switch from CFCs to HCFCs now supports the replacement of HCFCs as well because the ozone layer, human and ecosystem health will benefit, and also because the new developments will be good for business.

DuPont commercialized the first of its non-ozone-depleting hydroclorofluorocarbons, HFCs, Suva® refrigerants, in January 1991. Since then, the company has launched 19 alternatives and has more than 375 patents. "These alternatives are environmentally acceptable and energy efficient," the company claims.

However, the Natural Refrigerants Transition Board, based in Australia, takes issue with that assertion. Board spokesman Brent Hoare says, "HFCs can in no way be said to be 'environmentally acceptable' as these are powerful greenhouse gases regulated by the Kyoto Protocol, and are being phased out in mobile air conditioning systems in Europe and banned in many other applications."

"The only genuinely environmentally acceptable and long term refrigerant options are the natural refrigerants, ammonia, carbon dioxide and hydrocarbons, but companies such as DuPont actively campaign against the use of these gases in order to defend their commercial interests," says Hoare.

"The Montreal Protocol has been responsible for a significant improvement in the ozone layer, and because CFCs also were very potent greenhouse gases, their phaseout provided the added benefit of reducing greenhouse gas emissions," said Linda Fisher, DuPont vice president and chief sustainability officer.

"We have learned many valuable lessons from the structure and implementation of the Montreal Protocol that could be applied as we develop legislation to curb greenhouse gases," Fisher said.

"DuPont has called for U.S. and global action to reduce greenhouse gases as a founding member of USCAP, and we continue to take a strong company position on the need for a global regulatory program," said Fisher. The United States Climate Action Partnership, USCAP, is a group of large corporations and conservation organizations encouraging the federal government to enact legislation for the reduction of greenhouse gases.

"We believe that more needs to be done to protect our ozone layer as well as our climate," Fisher said. "Additional actions need to be taken globally by governments and industry to rapidly phase out HCFCs."

The Montreal Protocol conference will close on Friday, just two days before a Heads of State event on climate change being hosted by the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon at UN Headquarters in New York.

This event is aimed at building consensus at the highest level on the need for climate action and a global emissions reduction agreement to take effect when the Kyoto Protocol expires in five years time.

Steiner of UNEP suggests that agreement in Montreal on an accelerated freeze and phaseout of HCFCs might offer governments "quick wins" in addressing climate change and help to build confidence that a new international regime on greenhouse gas emissions can be agreed before the Kyoto Protocol expires.

Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2007. All rights reserved.