Israeli wins award for helping save shrinking ozone layer

Nations facing severe environmental problems, such as global warming and the extinction of plant and animal species, can draw encouragement from a successful precedent: The international agreement to protect the ozone layer marked its 20th anniversary last month.

And Israel played an important role in implementing the agreement. Dr. Michael Graber, the former deputy executive secretary of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Ozone Secretariat received an award for his work last month.

The Montreal Protocol to protect the earth's ozone layer was signed 20 years ago. The treaty was the first agreement banning or limiting chemicals that harm the ozone layer.

Graber received a Montreal Protocol Outstanding Service Award, as part of the UNEP's acknowledgment of the program's success.

He previously served as the head of the Air Quality Division of the Israeli Environment Ministry prior to joining the Ozone Secretariat in August 1996. From 2002 to 2006, he was the acting head of the Secretariat, making him one of the most senior officials in the world responsible for implementing the ozone protection program.

He was among the people responsible for establishing the international database on production and use of chemicals harmful to the ozone layer, which allowed the UNEP to verify countries' compliance with the Montreal Protocol's requirements.

"The agreement on protecting the ozone layer is one of the biggest international successes in protecting the environment. Research shows that in preventing global warning, too, [the ozone agreement's effect] will be greater between 1986 and 2012 than that forecast for the Kyoto Protocol for the same period."

Most of the earth's ozone is found in the lower stratosphere, about 15-35 kilometers above the earth's surface. It helps protect the planet from high frequency ultraviolet light, which is potentially damaging to life. More than 90 percent of all ozone is found there.

Scientists discovered that the ozone layer was thinning out every summer due to reactions with various man-made chemicals in the atmosphere, which led to the signing of the Montreal Protocol. Most of the chemicals were used in refrigeration technology and industrial detergents, as well as perfumes, fire retardants and sterilizing soil.

According to UNEP estimates, since the Montreal Protocol went into effect, the production and use of ozone-depleting chemicals has dropped by 95 percent. Since the mid-1990s, the ozone hole has stabilized and the amount of harmful chemicals in the atmosphere has dropped significantly. However, it is expected to take decades for the manmade damage to repair itself.

The improved protection of the ozone layer is expected to help prevent global warning too, as some of the ozone-harming chemicals are also greenhouse gases, including hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs). The latter have served as a temporary replacement for banned chemicals, since while they also deplete the ozone, they do so much less than the chemicals they replaced, such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs).

At a special session in Montreal two weeks ago, signatory nations decided to accelerate the removal of HCFCs. By 2010, developed nations are to reduce manufacture and use of these chemicals by 75 percent, and 10 years later, they will be banned. Developing nations are required to cut use by 35 percent by 2020, and to completely stop using HCFCs by 2025. Without the decision, HCFC production was expected to double in eight years.