-- Shares Facebook Twitter Reddit Email On September 16, 1987, the international community did something almost unheard of, especially in today's world: It worked together to protect the planet. "This important milestone demonstrates the benefits of the Protocol for mitigating climate change and stratospheric ozone layer loss." Ultimately ratified by 198 nations, including every country in the United Nations, the so-called "Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete the Ozone Layer" vowed to phase out pollutants that had been eroding Earth's ozone layer .
University of California, Irvine chemists Frank Sherwood Rowland and Mario Molina had proved in the 1970s that a widely-used industrial chemical known as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) damaged the environment. (The pair of scientists won the 1995 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for their discovery.) Specifically, they learned when the popular solvent/refrigerant/propellant was released into the atmosphere, it degraded from ultraviolet radiation and therefore released chlorine atoms.
Those chlorine atoms in turn broke down large amounts of ozone (O3) in the stratosphere, which had already punched a hole over Antarctica. Related The Australian wildfires were so big that they punched a hole in the ozone layer Without an adequate ozone layer, life cannot sustain itself on Earth. For that reason — and despite protests from businesses that profited from manufacturing and using CFCs — the international community prioritized preserving .
