In the 1980s, the Ozone Hole was hotly debated, but eventually resulted in the Montreal Protocol. It seems it's working, but not as fast as we thought.
Over huge areas of Europe, North America and Asia in the northern hemisphere and over southern Australasia, Latin America and Africa, the layer would be back to pre-1980 levels by 2049, the agencies said.I take th egood news that international efforts to curb the Ozone depletion worked, and it didn't kill us to do it. Now, the challenge is on for Global Warming and Global Dimming to be tackled properly.
This was five years later than forecast in the last major scientific report in 2002.
The agencies' message came in an official summary of a report by 250 scientists to be issued next year on the effects of the 1987 Montreal Protocol, which committed signatory nations progressively to ban the use of ozone-harmful products.
"The early signs that the atmosphere is healing demonstrate that the Montreal Protocol is working," said Achim Steiner, executive director of UNEP.
"But the delayed recovery is a warning that we cannot take the ozone layer for granted and must maintain and accelerate our efforts to phase out harmful chemicals," he said in a statement issued in Geneva and Nairobi.
Over Antarctica, where so-called "ozone holes" have grown over the past 30 years, recovery was likely to be delayed until 2065, 15 years later than earlier hoped.
"While these latest projections of ozone recovery are disappointing, the good news is that the level of ozone-depleting substances continues to decline from its 1992-94 peak in the troposphere and the 1990s peak in the stratosphere," said WMO secretary-general Michel Jarraud.
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