53 Nations Pledge to Ban Ozone Destroyers by 2000

Driven by disturbing new evidence of a widening hole in the Earth’s ozone layer, representatives of 53 nations agreed Friday to ban major ozone-destroying chemicals by the year 2000.

The deadline, established during a biennial review of an ozone-protection accord by treaty members that ended here Friday, marks a dramatic acceleration in the pact’s previously scheduled 50% phase-out by 2000. The accord is known as the Montreal Protocol.

Delegates also agreed to add new chemicals to the restricted list and to establish the world’s first multilateral fund to help Third World nations cope with a global environmental problem.

During the first three years, the fund is to have as much as $240 million, one-quarter of which will be contributed by the United States.

The delegates’ actions, expected to be formally ratified by their governments, were hailed as a major advance in the worldwide efforts to restore the ozone layer. Scientists warn that the layer is being ravaged by synthetic chemicals used widely as coolants in air conditioners and refrigerators, in the manufacturing of foam products and as cleaning solvents.

More important, diplomats said, the agreement was a watershed in a new era of environmental diplomacy: Industrialized nations in a legally binding treaty acknowledged a responsibility to underwrite the Third World’s costs of responding to global envvironmental concerns.

For their part, developing nations--many burdened by foreign debt and facing domestic pressures to raise standards of living--also acknowledged an obligation to the world environment.

The conference, sponsored by the United Nations, was also seen as a crucial test of how effectively nations can deal with still tougher environmental challenges ahead, including global warming.

“We were not simply writing an amended protocol. We were writing a chapter in international relations,” a visibly tired but buoyant Mostafa Tolba of the U.N. Environment Program told delegates and observers from nearly 100 countries.

William K. Reilly, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency administrator who led the American delegation, called the agreement “a marvelous example of worldwide cooperation without any precedent on an environmental issue.”

Maneka Gandhi, India’s environmental minister who earlier had clashed with the United States and other industrialized nations over the revisions, declared: “We have come a long way. . . . Many of our concerns have now been met. . . . We are at the beginning of a new millennium where all our energies will be concentrated on repairing and healing the damage done to mother Earth.”

Gandhi announced that she would urge her government to join the treaty. Her announcement followed by one day a similar announcement by China.

Her decision to recommend approval followed several days of intense and sometimes heated negotiations over how developing countries were to acquire new technology being developed in the West to produce ozone-friendly chemical substitutes.

In the end, language was worked out that appeared to satisfy both Third World nations and industrialized countries which are home to chemical manufacturers that are investing millions of dollars into research and technology.

China and India, with 37% of the world’s population, are the last major developing countries to state their intention to sign the treaty.

Under the agreed-upon terms, a family of ozone-destroying chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) will be totally phased out by industrialized nations in the year 2000. There will be interim reductions of 20% in 1993, 50% by 1995, and 85% by 1997.

Two other chemicals, methyl chloroform and carbon tetrachloride, were added to the list of controlled ozone-depleting substances. Use of methyl chloroform, a solvent common in Europe, is to be reduced by 70% by the year 2000 and eliminated by 2005. Carbon tetrachloride, another solvent, is to be reduced by 85% in 1995, and totally phased out by 2000.

Most halons, used mainly as fire-extinguishing agents, are also to be phased out by 2000.

The proposed new restrictions on the targeted chemicals will have an immediate impact on chemical manufacturers and eventually will be felt by virtually anyone who owns an air conditioner or a refrigerator--products which today use various chlorofluorocarbons, chemicals that attack the ozone layer.

But even with the phase-out schedule agreed to here, it will take well into the next century before the ozone layer is restored to its pre-Industrial Age concentration.

The gases are being pumped into the atmosphere six times faster than they can be handled by the ecosphere. Many will persist as long as 120 years.

During that time, one chlorine atom released from chlorofluorocarbons can destroy 100,000 ozone atoms.

Sherwood Rowland of the University of California at Irvine, who with Mario Molina first discovered that chlorofluorocarbons are depleting the ozone layer, said that even with the new controls, the ozone layer will continue to deteriorate until the year 2010 before it stabilizes.

The final communique left a number of nations and environmentalists disappointed. They said that greater restrictions and faster reductions should have been approved.

David Doniger, an official observer here and senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, a private environmental group, said he was more concerned with early incremental reductions in chlorofluorocarbon use than the final phase-out date.

“They seem to be focusing on the symbolism of the end date and not facing an opportunity to keep the stuff out of the air now. They’ve missed an opportunity to keep several billion pounds of CFCs out of the air,” said Doniger.

Scientists have said that every year’s delay in reducing substance harmful to the ozone layer will require up to 5 to 10 years in additional recovery time.

Thirteen nations issued a separate declaration pledging “firm determination” to phase out all chlorofluorocarbons not later than 1997--three years ahead of the agreed-upon accelerated schedule. They are Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, West Germany, Finland, Lichtenstein, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland.

Tolba, executive director of the U.N. Environment Program, said the proposed treaty changes must be ratified by a simple majority of the current 57 contracting parties, four of whom did not attend the conference. He said he hopes the ratifications will be gathered within the next three years.

Canada immediately ratified the amendments Friday night. That nation’s environment minister has the authority to do so without reference to Parliament.

The U.S. Justice Department files its first ozone-protection suits. D1

NEXT STEP

The accelerated ban on ozone-destroying chemicals must now be ratified by a simple majority of the 57 current parties to the treaty. Canada has already done so. Its delegate came to this nations have been deposited with the United Nations, the treaty modifications become binding on all who signed and ratified the original accord.