While the date might not have been pinned to your fridge door, it’s probably affected the way the fridge operates. In fact, the discovery of the ozone hole in 1984 and the subsequent introduction of ozone-friendly alternatives in the years that followed did more than just alter the way we cooled our food and our homes
Last weekend marked 30 years since the adoption of the Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer, from which the Montreal Protocol was born. Of all the multilateral treaties put before the United Nations, only the Vienna Convention and the Montreal Protocol that have achieved universal ratification
Amid preparations for the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change talks, the Montreal Protocol quietly announced a decision to fund China’s phase-out of hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs), a move which will keep eight billion tonnes of greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere, not far off China’s annual CO2 emissions
The Montreal Protocol’s relatively unblemished record of forging consensus looks as though it could be severely compromised by the actions of just a few countries – particularly India, China and Brazil – to block agreement on a proposal to globally phase down HFCs, the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions
I travelled to Miami to record interviews with key agencies - Department of Justice (DoJ), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) - for a training film on combating illegal trade in ODS which EIA is producing in cooperation with the United Nations Environment Programme
I spent last week in Canada attending one of the regular meetings of the Montreal Protocol’s Multilateral Fund (MLF), the body established to help developing countries meet their commitments under the global ozone treaty