Convention of Ozone Depletion and the Montreal Protocol

Draft Year: 1987

Amendment Years: 1990, 1992, 1995

International

Stephanie Curtis

Period 6

Description/Environmental Issues Affected• Signed by just 24 nations in 1987, subsequently ratified by 191 governments• provided for gradual phasing-out of CFC (ozone depleting substances) production and CFC

consumption by industrialized countries to 50 percent of their 1986 levels by 1998-99 (with a ten-year grace period for developing nations)

• Just six months later, scientists confirmed that the Antarctic phenomenon was in fact caused by CFCs, and momentum grew for a total phase-out of ozone-depleting chemicals. The Protocol was amended and substantially strengthened at Conferences of the Parties in London (1990), Copenhagen (1992), and Vienna (1995), and continued to be modified in subsequent years.

-The number of controlled substances was increased from the original eight to over eighty, and by 1995 most had been eliminated by the industrialized countries

-Designed to protect the stratospheric ozone layer

-chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), halons, carbon tetrachloride, and methyl chloroform--are to be phased out by 2000 (2005 for methyl chloroform)

Agency/Group Responsible for Regulation and Enforcement

• EPA – developed and implemented• The United Nations Environment Program organized efforts in 1982

to negotiate an international agreement.