Ozone Protection Anniversary Holds Lessons For Global Warming

(15 September, 1997 ? New York) This month, representatives from around the globe are meeting in Montreal to commemorate the 10^th anniversary of the Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete The Ozone Layer, negotiated by the Reagan Administration and ratified by 161 other nations. Thanks to the Protocol, millions will be spared from skin cancer and severe agricultural and ecological losses will be avoided. The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) today called upon the Clinton Administration to put the lessons of the Montreal Protocol to work at December’s international negotiations on climate change.

“This December in Kyoto, Japan, nations will agree to measures to avert the potentially catastrophic problem of global warming. An international consensus has emerged among scientists that a human influence on climate is already apparent and that warming unprecedented since the dawn of civilization is likely to occur in the coming decades,” said EDF chief scientist Michael Oppenheimer. “There is no doubt that global warming is the environmental problem of our generation. No environmental issue is more critical to the Earth or raises the possibility of so many tragic economic and human consequences as global warming. Destruction of forests, rising sea levels, flooding, and the northward spread of tropical diseases are just some of the potential outcomes if nations fail to slow the global warming trend.”

“The success of the Montreal Protocol proves nations can come together to protect the Earth,” said EDF international counsel Annie Petsonk. “The Kyoto delegates, as their counterparts did in Montreal a decade ago, must take bold multilateral steps to avert the looming threat to geopolitical and environmental stability posed by climate change. The best hope for an agreement is a greenhouse-gas emissions ceiling, with binding caps on pollution, and market-oriented incentives for all nations to keep emissions at or below budgeted levels.”

“With governments meeting in December in Japan to strengthen the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Clinton Administration must lead the way to a strong, economically sound climate treaty that will protect Earth’s future,” said Oppenheimer.