Fixing the ozone hole gives great hope to our planet

Last week I spoke about the first of four green signs of hope for 2023 – the UN landmark deal signed recently at the COP15 biodiversity summit in Montreal, Canada, by nearly 200 countries to protect a third of the planet by 2030.

“This week I want to talk about the recent claim by UN scientists that the ozone layer could completely heal within decades,” said Midlands energy expert Ron Fox.

“This just shows that when the world works together, we can solve some of the biggest climate change problems and it give real hope for the future of our planet.”

The ozone layer is a thin sheet of a form of oxygen gas that surrounds the earth and absorbs 98 per cent of the harmful ultraviolet rays from the sun. It is absolutely crucial for life on Earth – without it, our planet would be uninhabitable. It absorbs UV radiation and prevents most of it reaching us on the ground as its rays can harm humans, animals and plants.

In the 1980s scientists found that the ozone layer was being weakened, particularly over Antarctica. It was due in part due to CFCs, chlorofluorocarbons, which are made up of chlorine, fluorine and carbon atoms.

These harsh chemicals, which could be found in fridges, air conditioners and aerosol cans, were interacting with the gas in the ozone layer and causing it to wear away.

In 1987, an international agreement, the Montreal Protocol, was signed to ban CFCs after a huge hole was found in the ozone layer. In fact, it later became the first agreement to have every country in the United Nations sign up to it and 99 per cent of CFCs have now been phased out.

By promising to no longer using the harmful chemicals in every product, these countries not only aimed to protect the ozone layer from further damage, but also allowed it to repair itself.

Scientists said banning the CFC gases led to the ozone hole shrinking by 4 million square kilometres – an area the size of India – by September 2015.

Now a new UN assessment has found that by 2066 the ozone layer will be healed over Antarctica where ozone depletion was the worst and by 2045 over the Arctic and by around 2043 everywhere else.

However, the researchers involved in the UN report have said the world still needs to be careful, as they cannot guarantee that this recovery will continue.

“This is a rare example of how swift international environmental cooperation was remarkably successful,” said Ron, of Noreus Ltd on the University of Keele Science Innovation Park.

“What was interesting is that it didn’t require any change in lifestyle from the public who could continue using fridges and safe spray cans.”

Ron concluded: “In the past with London’s peasouper fogs of the 1950s and the acid rain of the 1980s, governments knew they had to act with these threats to human health. And they did with the clean air acts.

“Now we need politicians to show the same urgency and take joint action over climate change.”

For more advice on the environment and green energy contact Ron on 0845 474 6641.

Caption: The sky’s the limit when the world acts decisively together to solve environment problems as it did with the hole in the ozone layer.