The international community continues to support developing countries in their efforts to protect the ozone layer. At the Joint Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Vienna Convention and the Meeting of the Parties to the Montreal Protocol being held in Paris, participants decided yesterday to make a further 507.5 million US dollars available for this over the next three years.
The main results of the conference were decisions to replenish the Multilateral Fund (MLF) of the Montreal Protocol, which supports developing and emerging countries in fulfilling their commitments to phase out the production and use of ozone-depleting substances. Progress was also made on the issue of how the use of climate-damaging substitute substances can be further restricted.
Since 1991, industrialised countries have paid more than 3 billion US dollars into the fund. A total of 148 developing and emerging countries have received assistance from it. The German contribution, which amounts to nearly 10 percent of the whole, comes from the budget of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Federal Development Minister Gerd Müller and Federal Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks welcomed the decisions made in Paris. Müller said: "The Montreal Protocol to protect the ozone layer is a success story that shows climate action only works if we all pull together, because the climate knows no national boundaries. As wealthy industrialised nations, we have a responsibility to support the emerging and developing countries in this area, for example by promoting climate-friendly alternatives to greenhouse gases around the world."
Federal Environment Minister Hendricks pointed out what successes had been achieved through cooperation: "It is thanks to the impact of the Montreal Protocol that we expect that the ozone layer will recover to the thickness of the 1980s by the middle of the current century. At the same time forgoing the further use of ozone-depleting substances has made a significant contribution to climate action. In Germany they have been banned from the market entirely, and now we want to help other countries follow suit. I therefore very much welcome the Paris decisions."
In Germany the Federal Environment Ministry is responsible for the Montreal Protocol, which has been signed by all members of the UN. It is regarded as the most successful international environmental agreement. Research results presented at the conference demonstrate that the efforts of the international community are effective and that by the middle of the current century the ozone layer is expected to return to its 1980s level. The number of skin cancer cases prevented by the Montreal Protocol has been estimated at about two million. The protocol has also prevented damage by UV radiation, especially damage to the marine environment. At the same time it has made a significant contribution to climate action, because the ozone-depleting substances it regulates are for the most part also potent greenhouse gases.
The Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer was signed on 16 September 1987. Together with the Vienna Convention upon which it is based, it represents the first universal international environmental agreement. Since entering into force, its rules have been tightened repeatedly. Donor countries like Germany may make twenty percent of their contributions to the Multilateral Fund available through their own bilateral projects in developing countries. The German Government has been doing so since 1996, thus making it possible to promote proven technologies developed in Germany and Europe that harm neither the ozone layer nor the climate.