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Global Climate Change Digest
A Guide to Information on Greenhouse Gases and Ozone Depletion
Published July 1988 through June 1999

FROM VOLUME 4, NUMBER 8, AUGUST 1991

NEWS...
MONTREAL PROTOCOL MEETING

Item #d91aug51

Parties to the Montreal Protocol met in Nairobi in June 1991 and agreed to study the implications of phasing out CFCs and halons sooner than the currently agreed year 2000 deadline. Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Norway, Switzerland and Sweden support and intend to carry out a 1997 phaseout, which the Soviet Union and some others opposed. Also to be studied are the roles, applications, quantities needed, and eventual phaseout of transitional substances like hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs), which damage the ozone layer less than CFCs. The studies are to be completed by the next general conference on the protocol, scheduled for October 1992 in Copenhagen. A Danish environmental official interviewed by Intl. Environ. Rptr. (p. 384, July 17, 1991) considers that meeting the last opportunity to revise the protocol goals before they start taking effect.

At the meeting, China announced its accession to the protocol, and Turkey was accepted as a party with developing country status. Only four countries (Canada, New Zealand, Soviet Union and Sweden) had ratified the year 2000 deadline, a tightening of the original protocol decided at a London meeting in June 1990 (Global Climate Change Digest, News, Aug. 1990). At least 20 countries must ratify by January 1, 1992, for the modification to take effect. Only three of 43 parties who have agreed to contribute to the Montreal Protocol Trust Fund this year have done so (Norway, Sweden and United Kingdom), leaving an outstanding balance of $1.8 million.

For more details see Intl. Environ. Rptr., p. 363, July 3, 1991; New Scientist, p. 16, June 22; Global Environ. Change Rep., p. 4, July 3. For a discussion of "HCFCs: How Should They Be Phased Out?" see ibid., pp. 1-3, June 7.