OZONE IN RECOVERY
THERE IS some good news about the ozone layer, which shields Earth’s occupants from the harmful ultraviolent rays from the sun.
“The Un-backed Scientific Assessment Panel to the Montreal Protocol on Ozone Depleting Substances quadrennial assessment report, published every four years, confirms the phase-out of nearly 99 per cent of banned ozone-depleting substances. The Montreal Protocol has thus succeeded in safeguarding the ozone layer, leading to notable recovery of the ozone layer in the upper stratosphere and decreased human exposure to harmful ultraviolet rays from the sun,” reads a January 9 release from the United Nations Environment Programme.
“If current policies remain in place, the ozone layer is expected to recover to 1980 values (before the appearance of the ozone hole) by around 2066 over the Antarctic, by 2045 over the Arctic, and by 2040 for the rest of the world. Variations in the size of the Antarctic ozone hole, particularly between 2019 and 2021, were driven largely by meteorological conditions. Nevertheless, the Antarctic ozone hole has been slowly improving in area and depth since the year 2000,” it added.
Local sustainable development professional Eleanor Jones has welcomed the news.
“This is positive; several countries, including Jamaica, have instituted measures to reduce the substances going up to destroy the ozone layer,” she said.
“It is important for us to remember that the ozone layer plays a major role in filtering out ultraviolet rays that have been associated with certain types of cancers, and so on,” added Jones, who heads the consultancy firm Environmental Solutions Limited (ESL).
Jamaica has for many years been doing its part as a signatory to the Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer and its Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer – and been supported in those efforts by entities including the United Nations Environment Programme and the United Nations Development Programme.
With a focus on industries that manufacture or import ozone-depleting gases, including within the air conditioning and refrigeration sectors, the island has yielded some good results through, for example, the training of technicians from those sectors in the use of ozone-friendly hydrofluorocarbons, and the provision of tools and equipment to retrofit their trade.
Among the island’s early achievements is the phase-out of ozone-depleting refrigerants, chlorofluorocarbons in 2006, four years ahead of the schedule for developing countries in the Montreal Protocol.
Jones said those actions – including collaboration with customs authorities and other stakeholders, and the oversight provided by the National Environment and Planning Agency, from where the National Ozone Unit operates – must continue.
“It is important to recognise that we still have a lot of work to do. We are still some way from solving the problem; we have to keep going at it,” the ESL boss said.
“We have to protect those who are unable to understand and protect themselves. The man on the street may not (readily) understand, but it remains for those of us who do, to continue to make a difference,” she added.
Climate justice advocate and head of Change Communications Limited, Indi Mclymont-lafayette, agreed.
“This report has good and bad news. It’s great to see that there has been some reduction in ozone-depleting gases such as bromine; it shows results of the work being done globally. That is encouraging, but there is no room to relax when there is an increase in gases like N20 which influence the ozone and climate,” she said, referencing the executive summary of the findings from the quadrennial assessment report.
“It is a highly technical report, but my takeaway is that there is much more work to be done. Increase in some of these gases move us further away from climate emission targets of 1.5 degrees Celsius; and I have to continue to say that unless serious emission reductions are made, we in the small islands, like Jamaica, will die,” Mclymont-lafayette added.