A 36-Year-Old Treaty Is Slowing the Arctic Meltdown
Before climate change rose to its current pre-eminence as the worlds most-pressing environmental problem, another looming catastrophe worried scientists and politicians the loss of the ozone layer. Chlorofluorocarbons or CFCs a group of compounds used as refrigerants and aerosol propellants since the 1930s were breaking up in the upper atmosphere, setting off a chemical chain reaction that was gradually eating away at the ozone layer. That threatened devastating consequences for human life, since high-altitude ozone is crucial in screening out harmful wavelengths of ultraviolet light that can cause skin cancer and cataracts. Governments came together in 1987 to sign the Montreal Protocol to address this problem, kicking off an ongoing process of gradually replacing CFCs and their successors with less and less harmful alternatives. That agreement has been a resounding success, and a template for subsequent climate accords. Had it not been enacted, the ozone hole that appears each spring over the Antarctic would by now be matched with another spreading down over heavily populated swaths of the northern hemisphere, according to one 2015 study. In the US alone, there would have been 443 million additional cases of skin cancer by 2100 had the protocol not been enacted 2.3 million of them fatal as well as 63 million more instances of cataracts, a 2021 analysis found. Even the climate itself has benefited. Most CFCs and the related fluorine compounds known as F-gases are extremely powerful greenhouse pollutants, meaning that even tiny concentrations are sufficient to warm the atmosphere on a scale comparable to the vast volumes of carbon dioxide emissions. The reduction in CFCs as a result of the Montreal Protocol put a brake on that. The Arctic Oceans first ice-free summer will come about 15 years later than it otherwise would have thanks to the Protocol, according to a paper published last month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In the face of annual UN climate meetings that appear to take two steps backward as often as they move a step forward (this years conference, in Abu Dhabi, has named the chief executive officer of the emirates national oil company as its president, for instance), its tempting to believe that collective political action is helpless in the face of the damage that were doing to our planet. The resounding success of Montreal challenges that narrative. Emissions of the key ozone-depleting gas CFC11 are now running at as little as 10% of their peak levels in 1974. The ozone layer should return to its pre-industrial condition by 2040 in most of the world, a UN study concluded this year, with polar regions following over the next few decades. The global climate will be as much as 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) lower than it would have been without the Protocol, the study found. Even a substantial and mysterious release of CFC11 traced to eastern China during the 2010s was quickly identified by satellites and stopped. Hydrocarbon pollutants, to be sure, are more inextricably woven into the global economy than F-gases, which are used in a handful of niche applications in select industries. And F-gases havent been eliminated. Indeed, their importance as refrigerants and insulators means that consumption is set to grow rapidly as our planet warms and we shift to less carbon-intensive technologies. Air conditioners and heat pumps consume F-gases voraciously, as do electrical transformers, wind turbines, and semiconductor plants. On current trends, emissions might increase from the equivalent of 700 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2005 to 3.7 billion tons in 2050, according to one 2017 study equivalent to about one-tenth of current CO2 pollution. The solution to that may be somewhat counterintuitive. While the wide range of F-gases provides plenty of compounds with a vastly smaller warming effect (such as the R1234 thats rapidly becoming universal in car air conditioners, and heats the atmosphere less than carbon dioxide), many of the most-attractive alternatives are more old-school chemicals. Carbon dioxide itself may be the favored medium in refrigerated trucks and shipping containers, along with propane and butane in home air conditioners and ammonia in industrial cooling systems, according to the 2017 study. Electrical switchgear, where the highly potent SF6 is currently in near-universal use as a gaseous insulator, is seeing a shift toward vacuum and air insulators and alternative compounds, again including carbon dioxide. Replacing F-gases is one area where hydrocarbons and their products are likely to see growth, rather than decline, in the years ahead. Thats a positive story about the ability of human ingenuity and far-sighted policy to identify and solve global problems in advance. No one misses the CFCs that we no longer use, nor the other F-gases that we temporarily used in its stead before moving to better alternatives. Were not destined to a future where living standards can only rise at the expense of environmental damage. Instead, sound policy and innovation can find cleaner, more efficient ways to deliver the improvements in daily life that we all deserve. More From Other Writers at Bloomberg Opinion: An Environmental Victory (and Cautionary Tale): F.D. Flam How Cleaning Up Pollution May Be Heating the Planet: David Fickling A Crystal Clear Pool Will Cost a Lot More This Summer: Brooke Sutherland This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners. David Fickling is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering energy and commodities. Previously, he worked for Bloomberg News, the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times. More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com/opinion 2023 Bloomberg L.P.