The hole in the ozone is big news again. Delegates from 191 countries are meeting in Montreal, Canada this week to take the climate change protocol to its next stage.
I confess, I thought we had knocked this one on the head a long time ago and had learned to produce ‘ozone friendly’ refrigeration units – but I was mistaken.
We’ve eliminated 95% of greenhouse gases since 1987 but we are still belching too much and the economic boom in India and China has upped the demand for air conditioning creating more ozone depleting substances (or ODS) are on the rise. ODS are global warming gases. Odious, indeed!
Let’s hope the world wakes up pretty soon: If the Montreal Protocol gets adopted, use of HCFCs is set to cease in developed countries in 2030 and in developing ones in 2040. But the hole is not likely to heal itself for a further 20 years or more. However, countries there profess support for a more rapid phase-out, the details have yet to be negotiated.
We’ll keep watching…