Protecting the ozone layer - Philippe G. Le Prestre

Protecting the Ozone Layer: Lessons, Models, and
Prospects Since the mid-1980s, the international community has
adopted several significant instruments designed to reverse the
degradation of the life support systems of the planet. None of these
international agreements have been as successful as the 1987 Montreal
Protocol in creating the incentives and mechanisms for protecting the
ozone layer. Through the efforts of industry, government and public
interest groups, national commitments and achievements have progressed
further and faster than expected, while the list of controlled
chemicals has expanded. Now in its second decade, the Protocol enters
a crucial phase of its implementation.

Protecting the Ozone Layer: Lessons, Models, and Prospects
presents a wealth of information about the scientific,
legal-political, and technological hurdles that we will have to
overcome if humanity is to reverse its self-destructive course. The
technology section in particular should appeal to industries affected
by ozone layer protection as well as those affected by climate
protection, since this is the first ozone publication featuring
insights by the companies that spearheaded the major technological
breakthroughs.

Every initiative to improve the environmental performance of industry
has been accompanied by pronouncements of economic devastation, from
acid rain to auto emissions standards, from auto mileage improvements
to the protection of the ozone layer. Each new initiative brought
claims from industry that this situation was different, yet none of
their predictions have come true. At a time when industry fights
efforts to protect the environment, the ozone experience shows both
how technical breakthroughs have enabled environmental protection
policies to work in the past and how they will work again in the
future.

Protecting the Ozone Layer: Lessons, Models, and Prospects is
the product of a Colloquium that was organized in September 1997 to
celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Montreal Protocol.
Contributions have been gathered from researchers and practitioners in
the field, including some of the very same scientists whose work
awakened the international community to the seriousness of the danger
that humanity now faces. Other contributors include the scholars and
diplomats who wrote and negotiated the text of the Protocol and its
amendments, and the key figures who have been influential in
convincing industry to support the process.