Healthier ozone after 20 years, but new problems: Montreal

Sep 18, 2007, 18:54 GMT

Washington/Montreal - The ozone layer is healthier two decades after governments met in Montreal to ban the chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) eating it away.

But as environmental ministers and senior officials from 191 countries meet this week in Montreal to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Montreal Protocol, they are tackling a new problem: how to wrestle down use of the chemical created to replace CFCs.

The meetings in Montreal end on Friday, just three days before the heads-of-government climate talks in New York at United Nations headquarters. On September 28, US President George Bush has invited senior officials from 16 countries to attend a separate climate conference in Washington.

In the 1980s, the ban on CFCs was swift after scientists connected CFCs to the holes being eaten into the ozone, the atmospheric layer that screens out ultraviolet radiation. In turn, radiation exposure had spurred the growth and severity of human skin cancer.

To replace CFCs, hyrdrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) were developed for refrigeration, air conditioning, foam production and other uses - as an interim measure.

In the meantime, climbing temperatures and world affluence has vastly increased demand for air conditioning, boosting production of HCFCs, which have their own problems.

They erode the ozone layer, if to a lesser extent than CFCs, and also produce a harmful carbon emission called hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), which contribute to global warming, United Nations Environment Programme spokesman Nick Nuttall explained in a telephone interview with Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa Tuesday.

'It's only been in the last few months that governments are increasingly aware that production and use (of HCFCs) is going up quite a lot, and indeed, they are producing serious global warming gasses,' Nuttall said.

Under the Montreal Protocol, use of HCFCs is set to cease in developed countries in 2030 and in developing ones in 2040.

This week, officials want to speed up the process - possibly by an entire decade - and are considering six proposals from nine countries. The move could prevent another 18 to 25 billion metric tonnes of carbon dioxide from entering the air, representing a 3.5 per cent drop in greenhouse emissions, UNEP officials said.

Strictly speaking, there's a division of labour in the global environmental movement.

The Kyoto Protocol, which the United States has not signed, controls carbon emissions blamed for global warming. The Montreal Protocol - which has strong support from the US - addresses only protection of the ozone layer.

But the two treaties overlap at various places, and officials connected to both made clear on Monday that they are working together to close loopholes. One such loophole is the claim by new HCFC factories to money paid out under Kyoto's carbon market credit scheme for eliminating such greenhouse gasses as the byproduct HFCs.

Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, declared Monday that 'new plants and expanded production (of HCFCs) do not qualify' for payments under the carbon credit scheme.

Achim Steiner, executive director of UNEP, emphasized that 'both treaties are mutually supportive across several key fronts.'

Nuttall pointed out that clear action this week in Montreal would send a signal to industry to develop a new alternative to HCFCs.