- Climate bonanza through ozone-hole healing
- 10 March 2007
- From New Scientist Print Edition
The 1987 Montreal protocol, which restricts the use of CFCs and other ozone-depleting halocarbons, will be five or six times as effective at reducing global warming as the Kyoto protocol, say researchers at the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (NEAA).
The 2007 assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that halocarbons now in the atmosphere have a warming effect on the Earth's surface of 0.34 watts per square metre. Guus Velders of NEAA and his colleagues calculated that, had it not been for the Montreal protocol, this would have nearly doubled.
Another way to quantify the effect of Montreal is to look at how much CO2 emissions would have to be cut to achieve the same effect. By 2010, says Velders, the protocol will have prevented the equivalent of between 9.7 and 12.5 gigatonnes of CO2 being pumped into the atmosphere every year. If all countries meet their Kyoto targets by 2012, the equivalent of only about 2 gigatonnes of CO2 per year will have been saved.
From issue 2594 of New Scientist magazine, 10 March 2007, page 6
