Search Results

The major lines of scientific debate, research progress, and controversy over stratospheric ozone depletion from the mid 1970s to the mid 1980s are examined. Begins with the initial qualitative confirmation of the main points of the chlorine‐ozone depletion claim in 1976, which coincided with the resolution of the US policy debate over aerosols. It proceeds through 1985, with the seeming contradiction between slowly growing confidence that the main processes operating in the stratosphere were coming to be understood, and two shocking new claims of observed ozone losses that sharply called this confidence into question. In addition to reviewing substantive debates in stratospheric science, the chapter examines the multiple attempts over this period to synthesize and communicate the state of scientific understanding in assessments to inform policy making, culminating in 1985 with the first assessment that significantly influenced international policy debates.

The linked histories of science, policy, and strategy over the first decade of policy concern about the ozone layer (1970 to 1980) are detailed. First, the controversies of the early 1970s over potential ozone depiction by supersonic aircraft (through the effects of water vapour and nitrogen oxides from aircraft exhausts), and their significance for subsequent debates, are reviewed. Then the domestic controversy over chlorofluorohydrocarbons (CFCs) and ozone depletion in the USA, the parallel but more muted discussions in other countries, and the first unsuccessful attempts to develop international action on the issue are discussed. A brief account is also given of industry's initial research into CFC alternatives, and of the early ozone policy debates.

Reintegrates the discussions of science, technology, and policy to examine how the ozone protection regime has adapted since its formation. Discusses the linked processes of negotiation, assessment, and technological innovation that allowed the Montreal Protocol of 1987 to adapt repeatedly to new scientific knowledge and new technological capabilities, by strengthening and extending its control measures four times (1989–1990, 1991–1992, 1992–1995, 1995–1999). Finally, a brief assessment is made of the status of the regime at the end of the 1990s, including a review of several significant implementation problems.

Examines major changes in scientific understanding that followed the adoption of the Montreal Protocol in 1987 and the completion of the period of initial formation of the ozone protection regime. Returns to the two disturbing claims made in 1985 — extreme seasonal ozone loss in Antarctica, and large ozone loss worldwide — and traces their investigation over the following three years, their initial resolution in the year after the Protocol, and the consequences of their resolution in spreading calls to completely eliminate ozone‐depleting chemicals (chlorofluorohydrocarbons (CFCs)). The early development of the Protocol's expert assessment panels is also discussed; these are the centrepieces of the regime's structure to adapt to changing knowledge and capabilities.

The history of the ozone issue falls into three broad periods: a decade of deadlock from 1975 to 1985, despite repeated attempts to develop international cooperation; a rapid burst of ozone protection regime formation from 1986 to 1988, which produced the first agreement on concrete actions and most elements of the subsequent regime; and the period since 1989, which has been one of sustained progress in the elaboration and repeated adaptation of the regime's core control measures. These three distinct phases of the issue pose three explanatory challenges: explaining the dramatic transition from sustained deadlock by which the regime was established; explaining the persistent deadlock that preceded this transition; and explaining the sustained progress in building and adapting the regime that followed it. These are examined, stressing two types of processes: interactions between scientific assessments and the rhetorical use of scientific claims about environmental risk to support policy action or delay; and interactions between the setting and revision of regulatory targets, the assessment of technologies available to pursue the targets by reducing chemical usage, and the strategic responses of private industry. Some of the theoretical arguments advanced are then recast in practical terms to propose a set of lessons that the ozone issue may hold for other issues. The final section discusses limitations of the ozone regime.

Domestic and international policy‐making on protection of the ozone layer are examined from 1980 to 1987. Tracks the 1982 resumption of international negotiations to protect the ozone layer after two further unsuccessful attempts. Follows the progression of these negotiations, and their interactions with domestic policy and corporate strategy, over five years: three years of stagnation leading to the 1985 Vienna Convention, followed by two years of rapid progress culminating in the 1987 Montreal Protocol — the first international agreement on concrete measures to reduce human contribution to ozone depletion.

International assessments of ozone depletion began in the 1980s, after anti-regulation groups (such as the CFC industry) seized on differences between early national and institutional assessments, and the policy leanings expressed in some of them, as justification to delay regulation of CFCs. This spurred Bob Watson and colleagues to bring together scientists of varying nationalities, disciplines, and interests to produce large international ozone assessments, with the explicit goal of being seen as authoritative, credible, objective, and policy-relevant but not policy-prescriptive. These scientists focused on producing brief, accessible executive summaries, replete with neutrally phrased if–then statements, thought to appeal to busy politicians. These assessments are widely regarded as very successful, most importantly for having contributed to the Montreal Protocol. However, when unexpected seasonally and geographically localized ozone depletion was detected over Antarctica (the Ozone Hole), assessors faced huge uncertainty and insufficient understanding of heterogeneous chemistry, which had formerly been dismissed as unimportant. In response they produced new knowledge by repurposing ozone metrics such as chlorine loading potential to predict future ozone levels in the absence of adequate models. The assessment of ozone depletion illustrates how an assessment may be highly successful even while grappling with highly uncertain scientific knowledge.

Presents an analysis of multilateralism in American foreign environmental policy, focusing on the issues of ozone depletion, climate change, and biodiversity, and arguing that the evolution of US perspectives on environmental multilateralism reflects a fundamental split in the US policy arena. On one side are activists who seek to promote multilateral regulation of environmental issues and to deepen the US role therein. On the other hand are the sceptics, hostile to state and international regulation of environmental issues and preferring market solutions. The author suggests that, although sceptics have scored repeated short‐term successes, the longer‐term momentum favours the activists, and the US is gradually becoming more deeply embedded in multilateral environmental regimes.

Examines the major changes in technology that followed the adoption of the Montreal Protocol in 1987 and the completion of the period of initial formation of the ozone protection regime. Examines the reactions of major producers and users of chlorofluorohydrocarbons (CFCs) to the challenge posed by the negotiation and adoption of the Protocol. Discusses how major CFC producers in the chemical industry revived previously abandoned efforts to commercialize less ozone‐damaging chemical alternatives to CFCs. Also examines how CFC users, many of whom faced more serious risks from CFC restrictions than the producers, responded with intense efforts to reduce their dependence on all ozone‐depleting chemicals — efforts that reduced most CFC uses much faster than had seemed possible, and directed large shares of former CFC markets away from similar chemicals entirely.

The ozone layer is one of the most important natural resources and it plays a major role in environmental protection. This chapter discusses ozone layer depletion and also addresses the importance of cooperation among countries on this issue. Natural resource scarcity and environmental degradation play a key role in promoting successful international cooperation. The characteristics, reasons, causes, and all other asymmetries of ozone resource depletion are mentioned in detail in the later sections of the chapter. The Montreal Protocol, which played an important role in the negotiations of international cooperation among states and countries globally, is described. The concluding part demonstrates some broader lessons that fit in with the overall themes of the book.

This chapter focuses on transboundary and global health concerns. Topics discussed include the health consequences of war, ozone depletion and ultraviolet radiation, climate change and the greenhouse effect, deforestation and desertification, biodiversity, acid precipitation, transboundary movements of hazardous waste, disasters, and global chemical contamination.

Given that a treaty among national governments is the best institution available to control global public bads (GPBs) such as ozone layer depletion or global climate change, this chapter presents an investigation on whether there are any incentives to uncooperative inefficient behaviour based on the 1987 Montreal Protocol (MP). The main conclusion is that although at the time it was drafted MP was the ‘best’ feasible treaty for controlling CFC emissions, some incentives appear to be missing. The loss of CFCs as a result of inefficiency within the treaty is likely to be greater than that caused by a large number of (developing) countries not signing the treaty. Differences in net costs of reducing CFC use among signatories were not taken into account. Thirdly, the treaty focuses on CFC use and not on CFC emissions. The treaty allows trade of CFC-based products among signatories. This discourages signatories from trying to reduce CFC use more than that required by the MP. The existence of non-signatories means that scope remains for import of CFC-based products from such countries. This may also hinder the effectiveness of MP.

This chapter focuses on the impact of climate change and stratospheric ozone depletion on health. These changes are the consequence of overload and breakdown of global homeostatic mechanisms. Climate change and ozone depletion demonstrate that the planet is a closed system. Problems like these that are inherently global in nature require a response that is also worldwide. This means that international cooperation will be even more important than in the past, when diseases may have been distributed globally but the causes were essentially local.

This chapter examines the local and international politics underlying the bitter struggle to end usage of methyl bromide. Animal-based studies showed that methyl bromide is a mutagen and reproductive toxin. Upon breaking down in the atmosphere, methyl bromide, in combination with chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), also depletes the ozone layer. Following the discovery of a hole in the ozone layer in 1985 and subsequent signing of the Montreal Protocol in 1987, the United States committed to ending usage of ozone-depleting substances. An amendment to the Montreal Protocol, an international treaty to curb ozone depletion, in 1993 set a phase-out date for methyl bromide. This chapter discusses the collaborative efforts of farmworker groups and environmental organizations, including the Farmworker Association of Florida, Friends of the Earth, the Florida Consumer Action Network, and the Legal Environmental Assistance Foundation, to effect a methyl bromide ban in a battle with growers associations and industry groups.

This chapter first summarizes the main arguments of the preceding chapters. It then explains the link between ozone-layer depletion and global climate change; and why the MeBr case needs to be considered when the focus is on global climate change. It suggests that there is a way forward to make the successes of the Montreal Protocol compatible with climate politics, but it involves proactive, activist scientists and a greater range of participation from NGOs than allowed by the neoliberal turn.

In 1983, Carl Sagan, a planetary astronomer and a renowned science popularizer, coined the phrase “nuclear winter” to describe the effects on Earth’s climate of the explosion of nuclear weapons. This book examines one of the effects of nuclear explosions: decreased temperature and illumination caused by reduced sunlight. As an introduction, this chapter looks at attempts to predict certain climatic consequences of nuclear war and considers the obscuration of sunlight as the main mechanism, with ozone depletion and the altered reflection of sunlight as additional paths. It also examines some of the effects of nuclear weapons, from electromagnetic pulse and ozone depletion to radioactive fallout, global incineration, and climate change. These effects appear to be disparate, but are nevertheless linked by the geographical extent of their consequences.

This chapter focuses on two paired comparisons—one at the global level and one at the regional level—to underscore how seemingly similar pollution (public good) problems have vastly different collective action or cooperation prognoses. At the global level, failed action to stem climate change is contrasted with successful actions to curb ozone shield depletion. At the regional level, the paired regional public goods comparison concerns sulfur-based and nitrogen-based acid rain. Curbing the emissions of either of these two acid rain inducers constitutes the public good. Although regional treaties have made headway on both concerns, more rapid and better progress characterizes reducing sulfur emissions. By making the reader aware of the favorable and unfavorable drivers associated with supplying global and regional environmental public goods in important situations, it will become clear what fosters or inhibits environmental cooperation. Such knowledge bolsters informed policy making.

Human economy faces serious ecological constraints in the supply of not only energy resources, but also of a whole range non-energy mineral and non mineral material resources. The chapter discusses the issue of adequacy of deposits and supply of such materials and their recyclability. It also discusses the issue of wastes arising throughout the life cycle of a material resource and the classification of such wastes depending on their hardness so far as degradation is concerned and their respective nature of impacts on human health and the functioning of the ecosystems. It discusses specifically a few cases of pollution with important transnational externalities like pesticides pollution, acid rain and ozone depletion and the policy of their abatement by way of and global/bilateral bargain and cooperation

Nuclear war analysts often compared nuclear detonations to volcanic eruptions. The connection between volcanic eruptions and climatic changes, suggested long ago by Benjamin Franklin and others, received serious interest from researchers only in the early twentieth century. Today, however, a direct comparison between volcanic eruptions and nuclear war is deemed inappropriate owing to the different absorption properties of sulfuric acid and silica dust than dark smoke. Furthermore, the distributions of particle sizes are different, and warfare would give rise to fine particles from a variety of sources rather than a single location. This chapter examines scientific disciplines with less obvious connections to nuclear war, including volcanic eruptions, ozone depletion, planetary studies, dinosaur extinction, and the asteroid impact hypothesis.