Protecting the ozone layer: 30 years of cooperation and resilience.
Global collaboration to protect the ozone layer is today, undoubtedly, more pressing than ever and, together, we must face the environmental challenges that await us and ensure a healthy and prosperous future for our Big House and the generations that will later enable it.
In a joint effort to raise awareness among the world’s population of the need to protect the Ozone Layer and to reduce and eliminate the production and consumption of substances that damage it, every September 16th we celebrate International Ozone Layer Preservation Day.
The date, which reaches its thirtieth anniversary in 2024 since its establishment by the United Nations General Assembly, commemorates the signing of the historic Montreal Protocol, an agreement that in 1987 brought together the nations of the world to gradually reduce the risky incidence of chemicals containing chlorine and bromine atoms in the atmosphere.
Its predecessor, the Vienna Convention, formalized on March 22, 1985 with the acceptance of 28 states, recognized the vital need to help this region of the Earth’s atmosphere, which, thanks to its high concentration of ozone, serves as the guardian mantle of our planet’s biodiversity.
These compounds contribute to a progressive increase in ultraviolet radiation, thus implying risks to human health ranging from sunburn, premature aging and skin cancer, to cataracts and eye problems; affections to aquatic organisms such as phytoplankton and zooplankton, as well as amphibians, reptiles and other animals and plants of terrestrial and marine ecosystems.
The positive impact of the aforementioned Protocol, then supported by 197 countries, is indisputable, since according to the quadrennial report of its Scientific Assessment Panel, it is expected that by 2040 the Ozone Layer will recover the levels it had in 1980 in most of the planet and, by 2066, in Antarctica.
And it is worth highlighting the driving role of the so-called Kigali Amendment, another global alternative that since 2016 has been advocating to face the imminent climate crisis and global warming, with the reduction of hydrochlorofluorocarbons in the ozone layer as its main goal.
Yet despite progress, challenges remain, such as forest fires, the continued emission of greenhouse gases and short-lived halogenated substances not regulated in international agreements, as well as the adverse consequences of geoengineering with the injection of aerosols into the stratosphere at the forefront.
Global collaboration to protect the Ozone Layer is today, without a doubt, more urgent than ever and, together, we must face the environmental challenges that await us and guarantee a healthy and prosperous future for our Great House and the generations that, in the future, will have to enable it.
Written by Yadiel Barbón.
