Protecting the Ozone Layer: Science and StrategyThis book is the first comprehensive history of international efforts to protect the ozone layer, the greatest success yet achieved in managing human impacts on the global environment. Its arguments about how this success was achieved are both theoretically novel and of great significance for the management of other global problems, particularly global climate change. The book provides an account of the ozone-depletion issues from the first attempts to develop international action in the 1970s to the mature functioning of the present international regime. It examines the parallel developments of politics and negotiations, scientific understanding and controversy, technological progress, and industry strategy that shaped the issue's development and its effective management. In addition, the book offers important new insights into how the interactions among these domains influenced the formation and adaptation of the ozone regime. Addressing the initial formation of the regime, the book argues that authoritative scientific assessments were crucial in constraining policy debates and shaping negotiated agreements. Assessments gave scientific claims an ability to change policy actors' behavior that the claims themselves, however well known and verified, lacked. Concerning subsequent adaptation of the regime, the book identifies a series of feedbacks between the periodic revision of chemical controls and the strategic responses of affected industries, which drove rapid application of new approaches to reduce ozone-depleting chemicals. These feedbacks, promoted by the regime's novel technology assessment process, allowed worldwide use of the chemicals to decline further and faster than even the boldest predictions, by nearly 95 percent within ten years. |
Contents
3 | |
2 Early Stratospheric Science Chlorofluorocarbons and the Emergence of Environmental Concern | 14 |
National Action and Early International Efforts 19701980 | 26 |
Science and Scientific Assessment 19761985 | 62 |
5 Negotiations and Strategy 19801987 | 110 |
Science Assessment and Responses 19861988 | 147 |
7 Industry Strategy and Technical Innovation 19871992 | 173 |
The Protocol Evolving 19891999 | 197 |
9 The Theoretical and Practical Significance of the Ozone Regime | 245 |
List of Interviews | 281 |
Archival Sources | 285 |
Notes | 297 |
343 | |
369 | |
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Common terms and phrases
2-D models 50 percent action activists advance aerosol ban agreement alternatives announced Antarctic argued atmospheric bromine calculations catalytic cycle CCOL CFC controls CFC growth CFC production CFCs 11 chlorine Chlorofluorocarbons claims committee cycle decision developing countries discussed DuPont early effects eliminate emissions Environment environmental estimates European experts feasible firms Fluorocarbon Fluorocarbon Panel halons HCFCs HFCs identified important increase industry initial Leesburg lower stratosphere major measures MeBr meeting methyl methyl bromide methyl chloroform Montreal Protocol Nairobi NASA NASA/WMO negotiations observed OECD officials ozone depletion ozone hole ozone issue Ozone Layer ozone loss ozone regime ozone-depleting chemicals participation parties percent cut phaseout policy debates position projections proposed Protocol reduce refrigeration regulations regulatory response risk scenarios scientific assessments scientists significant solvent substantial TEAP technical trends troposphere U.S. delegation uncertainty UNEP United users