Eco Blog: World Ozone Day

This important day was designated by the United Nations General Assembly to commemorate an important time in history when world governments adopted the Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer in 1985.

Under the Montreal Protocol, governments, scientists and industry have been working together to cut out 99 per cent of all ozone-depleting substances. Thanks to the Montreal Protocol, the ozone layer is healing and expected to return to pre-1980 values by mid-century.

In support of the Protocol, the Kigali Amendment, which came into force in 2019, will work towards reducing hydrofluorocarbon (HFCs), greenhouse gases with powerful climate warming potential that is damaging to the environment. Life on Earth would not be possible without sunlight. But the energy emanating from the sun would be too much for life on Earth to thrive were it not for the ozone layer. This stratospheric layer shields Earth from most of the sun’s harmful ultraviolet radiation.

Sunlight makes life possible, but the ozone layer makes life as we know it possible. It was back in the late 1970s when scientists first discovered that humanity was creating a hole in the ozone layer through the use of ozone-depleting gases. World Ozone Day is a reminder that collective action, guided by science, is the only way to solve this global crisis.