A report by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on the 9th (local time) shows the prospect of restoring the destroyed ozone layer.
The report diagnosed that if the policies of countries around the world are maintained as they are now, the ozone layer in most parts of the world will recover to the level of the 1980s by 2040.
The ozone layer prevents harmful UV rays from reaching the earth’s surface.However, as the global environment deteriorated, the ozone layer was undergoing damage.
The scientific community has warned that there will be a hole in the ozone layer since the late 1980s, and pointed to Freon gas (CFCs) from refrigerators, air conditioner refrigerants, sprays, solvents, and foaming agents.Decreased ozone depleting gases and prospects for restoration of the ozone layer.
In response, countries around the world have strengthened regulations on CFC by signing the Montreal Protocol on Ozone Layer Destroying Materials.Since 1989, when the Montreal Protocol took effect, CFC use in countries around the world has decreased by 99%.
The report predicted that the Arctic, which had been severely damaged, will return to that level by 2045, and the Antarctic by 2066, as the ozone layer damage varies from region to region.”The response to protect the ozone layer is a good precedent for responding to climate change,” WMO Secretary-General Petteri Talas said in an interview with CNN. “Our success in phasing out ozone-destroying chemicals reveals that we had to stop using fossil fuels and reduce greenhouse gases to limit the rise in global temperatures urgently,” Talas said.Since the Industrial Revolution, the temperature of the Earth’s surface has already risen by 1.2 degrees Celsius.According to a study published in the scientific journal Nature in 2021, the current global temperature would have risen by 1 degree Celsius if CFC had not been regulated.
KS CHOI
ASIA JOURNAL
