Safeguarding The Ozone Layer And The Global Climate System

Publisher Description

Scientific evidence linking chlorofluorocarbons and other ozone-depleting substances to global ozone depletion led to the initial control of chemicals under the 1987 Montreal Protocol. Since then it has been realized that some actions taken to reduce future depletion of the ozone layer could also influence global warming. When the Kyoto Protocol was negotiated in 1997, countries had new incentives to take account of how choices among substitutes could affect the objectives of both Protocols. This report provides the scientific context required for consideration of these choices; potential methodologies for assessing options; and technical issues relating to greenhouse gas emission reduction opportunities for each of the sectors involved, including refrigeration, air conditioning, foams, aerosols, fire protection and solvents. This IPCC/TEAP Special Report provides invaluable information for researchers in environmental science, climatology, and atmospheric chemistry, policy-makers in governments and environmental organizations, and scientists and engineers in industry.

For policy makers : a report of Working Groups I and III of the IPCC -- Technical summary : a report accepted by Working Groups I and III of the IPCC but not approved in detail.

For policymakers -- Technical summary -- Ozone and climate: a review of interconnections -- Chemical and radiative effects of halocarbons and their replacement compounds -- Methodologies -- Refrigeration -- Residential and commercial air conditioning and heating -- Mobile air conditioning -- Foams -- Medical aerosols -- Fire protection -- Non-medical aerosols, solvents, and HFC-23 -- HFCs and PFCs: current and future supply, demand and emissions, plus emissions of CFCs, HCFCs, and halons -- ANNEXES: I: Authors and reviewers -- II: Glossary -- III: Acronyms and abbreviations -- IV: Units -- V: Major chemical formulas and nomenclature -- VI: List of major IPCC reports.

Addresses two major environmental issues associated with the earth1s atmosphere: global warming and the depletion of the atmosphere1s ozone layer. Begins with an assessment of how the atmosphere naturally influences the earth1s climate and how that climate has behaved in the past. It also deals with the potential depletion of the upper atmosphere1s protective ozone layer. The final chapter considers the linkages between these two issues, other atmospheric pollution problems, and human behavior, and examines what is being done and must be done to respond, both nationally and internationally. 40 charts, maps and tables. Emphasis on Canada.

This book is the first comprehensive history of international efforts to protect the ozone layer, the greatest success yet achieved in managing human impacts on the global environment. Its arguments about how this success was achieved are both theoretically novel and of great significance for the management of other global problems, particularly global climate change. The book provides an account of the ozone-depletion issues from the first attempts to develop international action in the 1970s to the mature functioning of the present international regime. It examines the parallel developments of politics and negotiations, scientific understanding and controversy, technological progress, and industry strategy that shaped the issue's development and its effective management. In addition, the book offers important new insights into how the interactions among these domains influenced the formation and adaptation of the ozone regime. Addressing the initial formation of the regime, the book argues that authoritative scientific assessments were crucial in constraining policy debates and shaping negotiated agreements. Assessments gave scientific claims an ability to change policy actors' behavior that the claims themselves, however well known and verified, lacked. Concerning subsequent adaptation of the regime, the book identifies a series of feedbacks between the periodic revision of chemical controls and the strategic responses of affected industries, which drove rapid application of new approaches to reduce ozone-depleting chemicals. These feedbacks, promoted by the regime's novel technology assessment process, allowed worldwide use of the chemicals to decline further and faster than even the boldest predictions, by nearly 95 percent within ten years.