By Ben Gill
This week marks 25 years since the discovery of a hole in the ozone layer by British scientists Joseph Farman, Brian Gardiner, and Jonathan Shanklin of the British Antarctic Survey. The ozone is the Earth’s protective layer against damaging effect from ultraviolet rays. However it also marks an unprecedented international response, with the Montreal Protocol written up within two years and becoming the first UN treaty to achieve universal ratification last year.
Swift action has already begun reversal of the damage. So, if we mobilised globally to solve an anthropogenic environmental threat then, why so much difficulty in tackling climate change today?
Jonathan Shanklin reflected on Thursday on their discovery in 1985 and the clear action required, once the cause was established. A unanimous global agreement followed to phase out the use of ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) used in refrigeration and air conditioning systems.
Several things make climate change more challenging to address than the ozone hole.
The hole in the ozone layer was soon linked to increased levels of skin cancer, immediately raising public awareness and intensifying a global response. Compare that to climate change, which appears to have less well-defined causes. As Shanklin described it:
“There was a scary side of the ozone hole, linked to skin cancers and cataracts and so on, which immediately engaged the public. The real impact of what a rapidly warming world could do is not so obviously intuitive.”
Another key difference — perhaps the most overwhelming one — is that it was relatively cheap and easy to substitute other chemicals for CFCs. Compare this to the huge investment required in renewable energy, transport infrastructure and the built environment to tackle climate change.
Then there is the historical context. Mike Hulme, a climate scientist who last year published a book called “Why we disagree about climate change”, believes that the Montreal Protocol was established in a post-Communist fit of optimism about the possibility of global governance, free from the ideological risks of the Cold War era; a mood that seems in the very distant past today.
Meanwhile, paradoxically, sealing the hole in the ozone layer may in fact contribute to global warming, at least in the Antarctic region. A thicker layer of ozone will increase trapped heat and reduce the production of cooling clouds from seaspray.
Regardless of this concern, CFC growth posed huge threats to human life and as NASA’s atmospheric physicist Paul Newman suggests in National Geographic: “It really is a testament to the good science that went into [understanding] the ozone hole and the nerve of the politicians to act on that science.”
Related links:
Climategate, and why we disagree - FT Energy Source
