Richard Benedick, 88, negotiator of landmark ozone treaty, known as Montreal Protocol
A May 1985 report in the journal Nature was alarming. High above Antarctica, a massive hole had opened in the ozone shield that protects life on Earth from the sun’s ultraviolet rays.
The finding confirmed what scientists had warned of since the 1970s: Atmospheric ozone was being broken down by the wide use of chlorofluorocarbons, chemicals known as CFCs, which were found in aerosol sprays, refrigeration, and air conditioning.
Just over two years later, dozens of nations meeting in Montreal signed an agreement to significantly reduce CFCs, which the Environmental Protection Agency estimated would prevent 27 million deaths from skin cancers.
“This is perhaps the most historically significant international environmental agreement,” Richard Benedick, the chief US negotiator, said at the time.
Ever since, the Montreal Protocol, as the pact is known, has stood as a milestone of collective action in the face of a planetary environmental threat, as well as a rebuke of the lack of resolve to tackle the more dire and complex threat of climate change.
Dr. Benedick, who was a career diplomat in the State Department when the Montreal Protocol was signed in 1987 and who patiently wore down opposition from foreign nations while withstanding powerful internal critics in the Reagan administration, died March 16 in Falls Church, Va. He was 88.
His daughter, Julianna, said he had suffered from advanced dementia.
It is no small paradox that a global treaty to address atmospheric pollution was negotiated during the presidency of Ronald Reagan, who was elected as a champion of business and a sworn enemy of regulations.
But support for addressing the threat of CFCs to human health was possible because environmental issues were less bitterly partisan than they would later become, and because US industry, chiefly DuPont, the largest maker of the chemicals, preferred an international treaty to the possibility of more draconian cuts by Congress.
Still, as Dr. Benedick wrote in a 1991 book about the road to a deal, “Ozone Diplomacy: New Directions in Safeguarding the
Planet,” success was never ensured in the nine months in which the treaty was hammered out. “Most observers in and out of government,” he wrote, “believed at that time that an agreement on international regulation of CFCs would be impossible to reach.”
Dr. Benedick, described as energetic and dogged by colleagues, was instrumental to the success. “He was a tenacious guy; he was like a terrier with a bone,” John Negroponte, then an assistant secretary of state who was Dr. Benedick’s superior and ally, said in an interview. “The atmosphere in this town — it was an uphill fight; I don’t think it would have happened without him.”
In the Reagan administration, leaders of the State Department and the EPA favored regulating CFCs. But in the middle of the international talks, strong opposition emerged from thenInterior Secretary Donald Hodel and William Graham Jr., the White House science adviser.
Hodel said Americans worrying about skin cancer from ozone loss should not expect more government regulation, but should try “personal protection,” namely, hats, sunglasses, and sunscreen.
In the end, Reagan came down on the side of Dr. Benedick.
The Montreal Protocol, which required cutting the use of CFCs by half, was signed by 24 countries in September 1987. It was ratified unanimously the next year by the US Senate. In 1990, the protocol was toughened to eventually phase out CFCs entirely. Today, nearly every country in the world has banned them.
Richard Elliott Benedick was born May 10, 1935, in the Bronx. His father, Lester Benedick, was in the insurance business. His mother, Rose (Katz) Benedick, died while giving birth, and as a result, “He never liked celebrating his birthday,” Dr. Benedick’s daughter said.
Lester Benedick remarried to Jean (Shamsky) Benedick.
Richard earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from Columbia University, a Master of Arts in economics from Yale University and a doctorate from Harvard University Business School, writing a dissertation titled “Industrial Finance in Iran.”
In 1957, he married Hildegard Schulz, whom he met at Yale. She accompanied Dr. Benedick, then a foreign service officer specializing in economic development in the State Department. The couple divorced in 1982.
Dr. Benedick’s second marriage, to Helen Freeman, also ended in divorce. Later, he had a long-term companion, Irene Federwisch. In addition to his daughter, from his first marriage, he is survived by a son, Andreas Benedick, also from that marriage; a granddaughter; and two great-grandchildren.
Benedick was not a scientist, but he was a great admirer of nature and the outdoors.
“He absolutely loved taking our family to the national parks,” his daughter said. “He planned five cross-country trips when we were children in the ’70s and ’80s. We’d fly to California and visited pretty much every national park driving east.”