"A gradual recovery is predicted, but
the layer will be damaged for half a century to come.
These predictions were made...on the basis of a fairly
optimistic scenario, including the assumptions that
there will be full and worldwide compliance with the
Copenhagen amendments [to the Montreal Protocol]."
-UNEP Science Assessment, p.i
Saving the ozone layer is not a game in which there are winners and losers.
Either everybody wins, or we all lose. Recognizing this, and recalling that
ozone depleting chemicals were developed in the industrialized North, the
Protocol incorporates a system to aid developing countries in their phase out
of ozone depleting substances. The Multilateral Fund, established in 1990, is
this system. While in theory the system should work, in practice it is proving
very difficult.
One of the obvious assumptions underlying the faith in ozone layer recovery is
that countries will live up to their committments. In many key respects, they
are not. For the Protocol to work as it is designed (much less as it should),
several key things must happen. First, industrialized countries of the North
have to phase out their use of these chemicals. Not all of them are. Second,
those same Northern countries have to pay (via the Multilateral Fund) for
Southern countries' phase out. Not all of them are. Third, there has to be no
substantial black market production of CFCs from either Northern or Southern
countries. There is.
Northern countries are simply not living up to their end of the bargain. In
short, there isn't enough money, or even as much money as the North had
promised. Currently, the North is over $50 million in arrears to the Fund,
which of course has the effect of slowing down CFC phase out in the South.
Italy, the worst example, has simply not paid anything yet. Canada is also
significantly in debt to the Fund. In many other cases, differring accounting
practices between governments complicate reliable projections. In at least one
case (the US), politicians are threatening to pull funding entirely. The
cumulative effect undermines confidence in the South that the Fund will work.
This lack of faith threatens to unravel the entire agreement with developing
countries wary of committing themselves to further action. At the last meeting
of the Protocol in August of 1995, the meeting completely broke down over these
issues and was simply adjourned, rather than closed.
A significant problem, both for funding and phase-out in the North, is the
economic chaos in parts of Eastern Europe and the former soviet union. These
economies in transition are in a difficult position to either convert their
economies away from ozone depleting chemicals or pay into the Fund - measures
agreed before the dissolution of their planned economies. Many have suggested
that they now simply be reclassified as developing countries under the
Protocol, but of course that would both increase the amount of money needed and
additionally increase the amount of damage to the ozone layer. Most production
is concentrated in Russia which is widely recognized to be a major source of
the growing trade in black market CFCS.
The emerging black market in CFCS is pointed to by industry and governments as
the most significant problem in compliance with the Montreal Protocol. The US
government has mobilized Operation "Cool Breeze", which involves the US Federal
Bureau of Investigations (FBI), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the
Customs Service, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Interpol. While the
estimated 10,000 to 20,000 US tons per year entering the US alone are certainly
a major, if predictable, problem with Protocol compliance, this trade pales in
comparison to "legal" production by US multinationals. One wonders whether the
real concern here is ozone layer protection, or market share.
