The multilateral response to ozone depletion represents, as the e-course highlights, a milestone among MEAs for two reasons: it set targets and timelines; and laid the foundations for the emergence of the precautionary principle.
The Montreal Protocol is highlighted as a successful international multilateral environmental agreement (MEA) through which international cooperation has led to the reduction of ozone depleting substances. The Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer, its Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer and several subsequent amendments are noted to exhibit two types of multilateral success – reaching agreement among states with varied interests and achieving real-world reductions of harmful pollutants. The Protocol offers the international community an exemplary process and outcome from which it can extrapolate and apply lessons learnt to current negotiations and discourse.
Given the important lessons to be learned from its example, this policy update explores the potential for improving knowledge of the Montreal Protocol through an e-course offered by InforMEA, a project of the MEA Information and Knowledge Management Initiative (InforMEA). The course offers a tool to help stakeholders build awareness of what multilateral success looks like, with a view to facilitating further protection of the ozone layer and lending support to other processes that rely on successful interstate cooperation to achieve critical environmental outcomes.
The e-course is a brief guide to the international legal framework protecting the ozone layer. Using accessible language and videos, it leads users through several units that begin with the science of ozone depletion, particularly important findings such as the 1985 discovery of a hole in the ozone layer over the Antarctic, and then discuss the international response. The e-course then details the provisions of the Vienna Convention, the Montreal Protocol, the amendments to the Protocol, and touches on issues such as the compliance mechanism, implementation measures and future challenges. The multilateral response to ozone depletion represents, as the e-course highlights, a milestone among MEAs for two reasons: it set targets and timelines; and laid the foundations for the emergence of the precautionary principle.
The Montreal Protocol was the first MEA to set targets and timelines to phase out chemicals harmful to the atmosphere. These phase outs were for both the production and consumption of ozone-depleting chemicals. They were designed in way that protected the interests of producers and importers, preventing high price inflation or overproduction during the phase out period of the targeted gases. In other words, the design of the targets was intended to avoid market fluctuations while achieving environmental goals.
The second milestone of the Montreal Protocol is its responsiveness to science. It was the first Convention to acknowledge the benefit of taking preventative action, before evidence of the harmfulness of ozone-depleting substances was firmly established. In this way, the Montreal Protocol is a landmark for the emergence of the precautionary principle in international environmental law.
The e-course also outlines factors that have contributed to the successful implementation of the Montreal Protocol and significant reductions in ozone-depleting substances. First, the Montreal Protocol employed a stepwise approach to rule making. Countries negotiated the Vienna Convention, then the Montreal Protocol before adding new substances slated for elimination in the London, Copenhagen, Montreal and Beijing Amendments. Through this stepwise approach, the Montreal Protocol has been able reflect emerging science and identify best available technologies that could be used as alternatives on a case-by-case basis for specific ozone-depleting chemicals. The use of amendments has aided progressive, smaller scale agreements and, in turn, implementation.
Second, the flexible arrangements for implementation used by developing countries have helped address concerns regarding the affordability of switching to safer alternatives. Under the Protocol, developing countries have special provisions, including a ten-year delay for implementation and financial assistance. These provisions have allowed all countries to undertake efforts to reduce ozone-depleting substances by using available alternatives to ozone-depleting chemicals, regardless of their development status. While the Montreal Protocol does not include the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities (CBDR) per se, it does operationalize the principle’s core idea that all have a responsibility for protecting the atmosphere and can do so when the necessary financial and technical assistance and flexibility to implement safer alternatives is offered.
The design of the Montreal Protocol, securing small agreements in amendments and flexible implementation for Parties requiring assistance, has led to real-world success and is a model worth studying. So far, 98% of historic levels of production and consumption of ozone-depleting substances such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), halons, carbon tetrachloride, methyl chloroform, n-propyl bromide and chlorobromomethane have been phased out. These chemicals were used in products, such as refrigerants, fire suppressants and solvents, for which cost-effective alternatives were developed during the negotiation of the Protocol. The ozone layer shows signs of recovery owing to the reductions of these harmful chemicals in the atmosphere.
In addition to profiling the Protocol’s success, the e-course discusses future challenges for multilateral efforts to protect the ozone layer, namely achieving the total recovery of the ozone layer and using more climate-friendly alternatives. It highlights the example of hydroflurocarbons (HFCs), which are ozone-friendly, but are potent greenhouse gases and introduced as a substitute for CFCs and hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs). HFCs are among the basket of six greenhouse gases that the Kyoto Protocol, negotiated under the auspices of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), seeks to reduce. There remains an ongoing debate as to which Protocol is best suited for future action on HFCs, leaving the question of how to address the issue in a complementary manner as a key question for the Montreal Protocol’s future. Given the overlap between climate and ozone issues, greater understanding of the provisions of the Montreal Protocol could help achieve the synergies necessary to lower atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases and to continue stabilizing the ozone layer.
For those interested in the politics of the possible, the Montreal Protocol is a lesson worth studying. InforMEA’s e-course seeks to equip stakeholders with an understanding of the most impactful elements of the Montreal Protocol, particularly its provisions for implementation by developing countries and step-wise approach to governance.