The Montreal Protocol (MP) is the only climate change treaty that has been ratified by every country in the globe and is testament to the fact that nations can achieve complete unanimity in fighting climate change.
In a function held to celebrate 25 years of MP organised by the ministry of environment and forests, New York-based Dr Suely Carvalho, chief of the Montreal Protocol, pointed out that parties to the protocol have phased out 98 per cent of ozone-depleting chemicals.
Both developing and developed nations have met their phase-out targets, leading scientists to believe that a full implementation of the protocol should help ensure the ozone layer return to pre-1980 levels by 2050-75.
Dr Carvalho quoted from a latest United States Environmental Protection Agency study that highlighted that the actions taken to protect the ozone layer will have saved 6.3 million lives in the United States alone that would have otherwise been lost to skin cancer and will produce $4.2 trillion in social health benefits.
“The decrease of annual emissions under the MP are estimated to deliver about 10 gigatonnes of avoided CO2 equivalent emissions per year which is around five times larger than the annual emissions reduction target for the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol,” Dr Carvalho added.
Mr Marco Antonio Gonzalves, executive secretary for the Secretariat of the Vienna Convention and Montreal Protocol, expressed confidence that the ozone recovery would be reached by the middle of this century. “The ozone hole will start disappearing. It is 50 km above us and was formed 400 to 600 million years ago. We don’t see it but it is protecting all forms of life,” Mr Gonzalves pointed out.
“The MP is pushing for the phasing out of hydrochloroflurocarons (HCFCs) methyl bromide, once used widely as an agricultural fumigant and also halons,” said Mr Gonzalves. “India has been compliant with MP and has been a strong voice representing developing countries,” he added.
“The precautionary principle has been used nine times to include more substances and the protocol was amended four times to strengthen it. From the 120 different depleting substances, 98 per cent have already been phased out,” Mr Gonzalves said, adding that the Indian industry was moving towards using efficient alternatives.