6 More Nations Agree to Sign Ozone Accord : International Conference Opens in London With Flurry of Action on Curbing Chemicals

Confronted with mounting evidence that the Earth faces an unprecedented environmental crisis, six more nations announced Sunday that they will sign an international accord to rid the atmosphere of ozone-destroying chemicals.

The six nations that said they will sign the landmark Montreal Protocol are Austria, Hungary, Malaysia, Trinidad and Tobago, the Philippines and Zambia.

The protocol, first approved in 1987 and signed and ratified by 32 countries, commits industrialized nations to cut their use and production of ozone-destroying chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) by 50% by the turn of the century. Developing countries are given an additional 10 years to comply.

Meanwhile, the ranking environmental official of the 12-nation European Community disclosed that he will recommend that Europe go a step further than it did three days ago in Brussels, when community ministers surprised both the United States and Britain by endorsing a total phase-out of the chemicals by the turn of the century, a position Washington took the following day.

EC Environment Commissioner Carlo Ripa Di Meana said he will push for a phase-out as early as 1996 or 1997, a position strongly endorsed by private environmental groups.

Mexico and Switzerland also announced Sunday that they will accelerate the phase-out of CFCs, and Japan announced that it will host a major Asian-Pacific ozone conference next fall to enlist more support for the protocol.

The fast-breaking developments came on the opening day of an international ozone conference called by British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. They were viewed as evidence of growing diplomatic momentum for prompt action to end the chemical disintegration of the ozone layer that protects all life on Earth from lethal levels of ultraviolet radiation from the sun.

In the words of Swiss delegate Flavio Cotti, “The time has come for a universal response to a universal challenge.”

Pressure to Sign

Despite careful disclaimers by Thatcher before the three-day conference that non-signatory governments would not be urged to make commitments to sign the protocol, it was clear that they were coming under intense pressure from many of the 124 nations in attendance.

President Daniel Arap Moi of Kenya, who delivered the keynote address, declared: “Let us all accept the fact that the threat to the ozone layer is a global problem whose disastrous effects have no national boundaries. It calls for a mobilization of political will, international cooperation and genuine and equitable sacrifice from all of us.”

Moi’s remarks as the president of a developing country took on added significance because many of the holdouts are Third World nations that either view ozone depletion and global warming as issues which pale in importance to the need for economic development, or want assurances before signing of technological and economic assistance to help them comply.

Among the developing nations of most concern that have not signed the protocol are China and India. In addition, delegates from the Soviet Union said Sunday that more scientific data is needed before the Kremlin will consent to strengthening the protocol, which it has signed.

Third World Development

A number of countries, including the European Community group, said there is concern that as industrialized nations phase out CFCs, developing countries will take up the slack and defeat global efforts to enjoin the ozone destruction.

Irving Mintzer, a research scientist with the Washington-based World Resources Institute, said in a recent study that if just four developing countries--China, India, Indonesia and Brazil--increase their domestic consumption of CFCs to the levels allowed by the protocol, CFC production on a worldwide basis would double from the 1986 base level.

For that reason, both U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator William K. Reilly and Di Meana of the European Community said that economic and technological aid would be necessary to help developing countries switch to safer substitutes.

While Reilly could not be specific as to funds, Di Meana said that a portion of the $10 billion that the community budgets for aid to 66 African, Caribbean and Pacific states would be earmarked for this purpose. Reilly disclosed that the United States has already opened talks with China and would do so with India.

Thatcher Remarks

In her welcoming address, Thatcher said that environmental issues have come to preoccupy governments and people more than ever before. She added that she is convinced that “we need to go further and act faster” than the protocol now requires. The targeted chemicals--chlorofluorocarbons used in refrigeration, air conditioning, cleaning computer chips and in the manufacture of foam products--are destroying the Earth’s ozone layer.

Another category of destructive chemicals are halons, which are used in fire suppressants. The protocol does not require a rollback in the use of halons, only a freeze to 1986 levels.

Reilly announced Sunday that the Bush Administration, in calling for a total phase-out of the chemicals, included halons as well as chlorofluorocarbons. That was not made clear when the President made the announcement last Thursday in Washington.

Reilly also denied that the Bush Administration was allowing itself a loophole on missing the phase-out deadline by conditioning it on the availability of environmentally sound alternatives.

Some environmentalists have warned that without a certain deadline, industry may slow its pace in finding replacements.

Reilly said that based on talks with industry leaders, he is confident substitutes will be found.

Du Pont Co., one of the world’s leading producers of CFCs, announced Sunday that it has two “long-term candidates” for replacing CFCs that are used as cleaning agents by electronic companies.

Cleaning agents, used in the production of computer chips, account for about 20% of the world market for CFCs. Du Pont Group Vice President Archie W. Dunham said in London that with the latest chemical candidates, the company now has good substitute prospects for all major CFC markets, including refrigeration, blowing agents, cleaning agents and aerosols.

Danger to Continue

Because of previous and current emissions of these chemicals, it is likely that the ozone layer will continue to be thinned. Scientists say that if action is undertaken quickly, the ozone depletion can be reduced but not reversed for at least 100 years.

Before 1935, there were no CFCs in the atmosphere. But since the mid-1970s, atmospheric concentrations have grown annually at an average rate of 5% to 7% according to the EPA. There is early evidence that halons have increased at the rate of 20% per year during the past decade, the EPA said.

The life of various CFCs range from 75 to 120 years, and they provoke what UC Irvine Prof. Sherwood Rowland called a chain reaction that destroys the ozone shield, with one CFC molecule destroying 100,000 ozone molecules. It was Rowland and a colleague who first warned in 1974 of the danger posed to the ozone layer by these chemicals.

“Whatever happens to the atmosphere is going to stay for a long time,” Rowland told a meeting here of environmentalists that preceded the Thatcher conference.

Since a team of British scientists discovered the so-called ozone hole over the Antarctic in 1985, similar but less severe phenomena have been detected over the Arctic.

More recently, scientists have found that there are enough chemical pollutants in the Arctic to deplete the ozone layer there at the staggering rate of 1% a day if climatic conditions are right.

Disturbing Findings

The Arctic findings are particularly disturbing because, unlike the South Pole, a good deal of the world’s population resides in the northern latitudes.

The U.S. EPA study graphically pointed out the dangers of a thinning ozone shield--heightened risks of damage to the human eye, including cataracts, potential impairment of the human immune system and additional skin cancers.