The ozone layer is on track to fully recover after four decades, with the global phaseout of ozone-depleting chemicals already benefiting efforts to mitigate climate change. The United Nations Environment Programme
(UNEP), World Meteorological Organization (WMO), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and European Union (EU) announced through a joint report that the ozone layer is recovering. If current policies remain in place, the ozone layer is expected to recover to 1980 levels (before the appearance of the ozone hole). The key to the ozone layer’s recovery is the Montreal Protocol. 

The UN-backed Scientific Assessment Panel to the Montreal Protocol on Ozone Depleting Substance quadrennial assessment report is published every four years. This time, it was announced that the ozone layer is recovering, allowing us to avoid an estimated 0.3 to 0.5°C warming. The main content of the report is that the ozone layer is expected to recover to its 1980s levels over most of the Earth’s sky, excluding the polar regions.

In the 1980s, a hole in the Earth’s ozone protective layer was discovered for the first time, leading the problem of ozone layer depletion to emerge as a global problem. In 1985, the Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer was discussed. Later, the Montreal Protocol was established in 1968 in Montreal, Canada. The purpose of the assessment is to regulate the production and use of ozone-depleting substances. The main contexts are the gradual reduction in the production of about 100 gaseous substances, including chlorofluorocarbons and halons, known as freon gases, and the re-evaluation of regulatory measures by issuing reports at least once every four years. According to this report, the total amount of chlorine in the stratosphere decreased by 11.5% from the highest level recorded in 1993 and the amount of bromine decreased by 14.5% from the highest level recorded in 1999.

However, the ozone layer is only a part of the global climate crisis. That is, the ozone layer’s recovery does not mean that progress is being made on the climate crisis. Since 1995, the Conference of Parties to the United Nation Framework Convention on Climate Change has been held every year, but the greenhouse gas reduction goal set at each meeting has never been achieved. In the meantime, the temperature of the Earth has continued increasing year by year. The reason why the global climate crisis is not improving is due to advanced nations. The recovery of the ozone layer was made possible through the will of advanced countries, because the areas where the harmful ultraviolet rays breaking through the ozone layer were most concentrated were mainly those close to the polar regions, such as North America and Northern Europe. As a result during the 1980s and 1990s, the incidence of skin cancer among Caucasians in North America and Europe increased by 4 to 5% each year. 
For the successful implementation of the Montreal Convention, the United States, Canada, and European countries provided hundreds of millions of dollars of compensation for losses annually. Furthermore, in the 2000s, when some developing countries, including China, broke international agreements by emitting freon gas, scientific satellites were launched to track them. On the other hand, there is no urgency in advanced countries regarding climate change issues such as global warming. This is because climate change will have greater impacts on middle-income and developing countries. Unlike Africa, the Middle East, or Southeast Asia, regions that suffer from severe droughts and floods, developed countries such as the United States and Europe have suffered relatively little environmental damage in the early stages of global warming and have been slow in responding to climate change.

As a result, voices are growing that developed countries, which have the technology and capital needed to respond to climate change, should be more active. Former US Vice President Al Gore, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for raising public awareness of the seriousness of climate change, recently said at the Davos Forum that “(advanced countries) must provide enormous funding to respond to climate change,” and warned that “not supporting low-income countries will eventually hurt rich countries.”

The success of the Montreal Protocol shows that if human beings try to solve a global problem, they can do it. As advanced countries have managed to restore the ozone layer, someday, the global warming problem can also be solved. WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas said, “Ozone action sets a precedent for climate action. Our success in phasing out ozone-eating chemicals shows us what can and must be done – as a matter of urgency – to transition away from fossil fuels, reduce greenhouse gases and so limit temperature increase.”

Kang Hyun-Jin
Reporters

hyunjinkang1228@kookmin.ac.kr