Latin America: Recovery of ozone layer up to poor countries

by Marcela Valente

Buenos Aires, 12 Sep 2001 (IPS) - Developing countries must accelerate their efforts to reduce the use and production of ozone-depleting substances, as the industrialised North has already done, in order to make possible a total recovery of the ozone layer by 2050, experts underline.

That challenge will be the main focus of the debate at this week’s Thursday through Saturday meeting of Latin American ozone experts in the city of Ushuaia in the extreme south of Argentina, on the eve of the International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer.

Latin America accounts for just 14% of all ozone-depleting substances produced worldwide.

But scientists warn that the hole in the ozone layer will close completely within the next 50 years only if all countries meet the 2010 targets for emission of CFCs.

“It’s like a polluted river. After you stop dumping waste, it takes a while for the river to become clean again,” Marcos Pinzon, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Ozone Network coordinator for Latin America and the Caribbean, told IPS.

Pinzon said it was necessary to draw the attention of governments in the region to the need to come up with solutions to this pressing environmental problem, “which seems to have gone out of fashion despite the fact that we’re only halfway along the road” to addressing the issue.

Industrialised countries have met nearly all of the targets set by the Montreal Protocol, a global effort to ban the production and use of ozone-destroying chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), while the South has a 2010 deadline. All CFCs are to be totally eliminated in the world by that time.

The experts gathering in Ushuaia will draft a document to be presented at a meeting of Latin American environment ministers late next month in Rio de Janeiro, where the region will design a common strategy with a view towards the Rio Plus 10 international conference to take place in 2002 in Johannesburg, South Africa.

The Johannesburg summit will assess the progress made towards fulfilling the goals and recommendations agreed at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.

All Latin American nations have signed the Montreal Protocol, which was adopted in 1987 and went into effect on 1 January 1989. UNEP’s aim is for all countries in the world to have signed the Protocol by the end of next year.

Latin America has made more progress than Africa or Asia in replacing aerosols and banning consumption of other damaging substances like halons and methyl bromide. However, it must yet meet new targets with deadlines that expire in 2002, 2005, 2007 and 2010.

The ozone layer, located 10 to 50 km above the earth, protects the planet from the sun’s ultraviolet rays, especially UV-B radiation.

Any perceptible thinning of ozone in the stratosphere, one of the outermost layers of the atmosphere, leads to an increase in the UV-B radiation that reaches the surface of the planet.

For decades, scientists have warned that an increase in exposure to UV-B rays causes skin cancer, depresses the immune system, exacerbates eyesight problems like cataracts, damages plastic, and hurts animals and plants.

The hole in the ozone layer is seen over Antarctica from September to early December - the southern hemisphere spring.

The ozone layer has so far thinned more this year than by the same date in 2000, and there are fears that the hole will last longer than last year.

According to scientific monitoring, the number of Dobson Units, used to measure ozone concentration in the atmosphere, stood at 150 on 5 September, compared to 210 on the same date last year.

The global average is 280 to 300 Dobson Units, and values below 200 bring increased risks to human health.

The phenomenon has severe consequences for the South, which is more exposed to UV-B radiation. However, the cause of the destruction of the ozone layer lies in the production and use of CFCs - used in aerosols, foams, refrigerators, air conditioners and fire extinguishers - as well as halons and methyl bromide.

CFCs have already been replaced in industrialised countries, except in the few cases in which no suitable replacements have been found, or in equipment with a short design life.

The Montreal Protocol set up a multilateral aid fund established with capital from the North to help developing nations carry out the necessary industrial re-conversion and replace CFCs. The programme has already disbursed over $1.3 billion.

Pinzon underlined to IPS that there was still much to be done in Latin America, and for that reason, governments in the region are being called on to commit themselves to the efforts by signing documents and not only putting into effect the changes required in industry, but also carrying out environmental impact studies assessing the extent of the damages that have already been caused.

“Argentina and Chile must take more initiative in holding the international community accountable for damages to human health and crops. But in order to do that, they must carry out studies and demonstrate the concrete costs, in order to call attention to the magnitude of the problem,” he stressed.

Latin America has already begun to adopt the use of ozone-safe aerosols.  However, thus far, only Colombia produces refrigerators that do not use CFCs, although these green-friendly appliances cost 30% more than those that do use the ozone-depleting gases.

A UNEP programme financed by the Montreal Protocol fund trains technicians in refrigeration to prevent CFCs from leaking during repairs.

The increasingly widespread manufacturing of air conditioners and refrigerators that do not use CFCs is bringing down production costs, and hopefully by the time the Montreal Protocol’s deadline comes up, “green-friendly” appliances will cost no more than traditional ones, said Pinzon. – SUNS4966

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