Initiatives for Tackling Ozone Layer Depletion: UPSC Daily Important Topic | 12 February 2023

Initiatives for Tackling Ozone Layer Depletion

✅Vienna Convention:

The 1985 Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer was an international agreement in which United Nations members recognized the fundamental importance of preventing damage to the stratospheric ozone layer.

India became a Party to the Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer on 18th March 1991.

✅Montreal Protocol:

The 1987 Montreal Protocol on Substances that deplete the Ozone Layer and its succeeding amendments were subsequently negotiated to control the consumption and production of anthropogenic (ODSs) and some hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs).

India became Party to the Montreal Protocol on substances that deplete the Ozone layer on19th June 1992.

✅Kigali Amendment:

The adoption of the 2016 Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol will phase down the production and consumption of some HFCs and avoid much of the projected global increase and associated climate change.

✅EU Regulation:

EU legislation on ozone-depleting substances is among the strictest and most advanced in the world. Through a series of regulations, the EU has not only implemented the Montreal Protocol but has often phased out dangerous substances faster than required.

✅The EU Ozone Regulation sets licensing requirements for all exports and imports of ozone-depleting substances and regulates and monitors not only substances covered by the Montreal Protocol (over 90 chemicals), but also some that are not covered (five additional chemicals called ‘new substances’).

✅India’s regulations for safe use of hydrocarbons as non-ODS alternatives:

Hydrocarbons including isobutane and cyclopentane are available as non-ODS alternatives for use in aerosols, foam-blowing and refrigeration sectors.

Safe use of hydrocarbons is regulated by petroleum laws in India.