According to a 2007 Environment Canada Survey, only one in four Canadians (26 per cent) said they knew about the Montreal Protocol. Here are some quick facts about this pivotal environmental agreement that accelerated the fight against ozone depletion for Canada and the world.
The ozone layer acts as our planet's sunscreen, providing an invisible filter to help protect all life forms from the sun's damaging ultraviolet (UV) rays.
Severe ozone depletion over the Antarctic has been occurring since 1979 and the general downturn in global ozone levels started in the early 1980s.
On September 16, 1987, Canada became one of the first of 24 nations to sign and ratify the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, the international agreement to regulate the production and consumption of ozone-depleting substances. 191 countries have now ratified the Montreal Protocol. Canada will be hosting the historic 20th anniversary meeting in the city where this milestone agreement was born this September.
Canada is in full compliance with and has consistently played a leadership role in the negotiation of the Montreal Protocol. In fact since 1987, ozone-depleting substance consumption in Canada is down approximately 97 per cent.
Scientists have determined that the rate of decline in ozone has been reduced, and thatozone levels are no longer declining over mid-latitude areas, including southern Canada. Clear evidence of the start of a recovery of the ozone layer is anticipated within the next decade.
The Antarctic ozone hole is expected to exist for about another 50 years and probably disappear around 2060 to 2075. In the Arctic, large ozone losses are expected to continue for about the next 15 years, and will be particularly severe during unusually cold years in the upper atmosphere. Arctic ozone is expected to recover before 2050.
The pattern of change in the thickness of the ozone layer in the 1980s to the early 1990s and levelling off in the late 1990s to early 2000s matched almost exactly the pattern of change in the concentration of CFCs. These results indicate that the science was correct, and that CFCs were indeed the primary cause of the depletion of the ozone layer.
If there had been no Montreal Protocol, and no action had been taken to reduce CFCs and other ozone destroying chemicals, it is estimated that UV levels over southern Canada could have increased about 25 per cent by now.
According to a 1997 Environment Canada report, approximately, 20.6 million cases of non-melanoma and melanoma skin cancers will have been averted by 2060 and 333 500 skin cancer deaths will have been prevented because the Protocol came into effect.
As UV-B radiation has an impact on aquatic and plant life also, the same report predicts that the signing of the Protocol will result in benefits of around $238 billion to the world's fisheries and of about $191 billion to world agricultural production by 2060.
The Montreal Protocol has stimulated innovation resulting in savings for industry as well. The switch away from CFC-based propellants alternatives based on hydrocarbons has cut industry's material costs for propellants by as much as 80 per cent.
September 16 is International Ozone Day. To commemorate this day and the 20th anniversary of the signing of the Montreal Protocol, the Biosphere in Montreal will offer special programming on September 15 and 16, 2007. Admission will be free of charge for all.
