Unified global effort to repair Earth’s ozone layer infuses new life into climate change fight

Special Unified global effort to repair Earth’s ozone layer infuses new life into climate change fight
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A NOAA ozonesonde — an instrument used to monitor the Antarctic ozone hole — ascends over the South Pole in this time-lapse photo. The hole on track to mend itself. (Courtesy of Yuya Makino/IceCube)
Special Unified global effort to repair Earth’s ozone layer infuses new life into climate change fight
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This time-lapse photo shows the path of an ozonesonde as it rises into the atmosphere in the South Pole. (Courtesy of Robert Schwarz/South Pole, 2017)
Special Unified global effort to repair Earth’s ozone layer infuses new life into climate change fight
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Satellite observations determined the ozone hole reached its annual maximum area of 26.4 million sq. km. on Oct. 5, 2022.(NOAA image)
Special Unified global effort to repair Earth’s ozone layer infuses new life into climate change fight
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A NOAA ozonesonde — an instrument used to monitor the Antarctic ozone hole — ascends over the South Pole in this time-lapse photo. (Courtesy of Yuya Makino/IceCube)
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Updated 29 January 2023

Unified global effort to repair Earth’s ozone layer infuses new life into climate change fight

Unified global effort to repair Earth’s ozone layer infuses new life into climate change fight
  • Scientists say the hole in the planet’s shield, first detected in the 1980s, will return to normal by around 2066 
  • Same cooperation seen under the 1987 Montreal Protocol needed to slow global warming, say experts

LONDON: You cannot see it with the naked eye but high over your head, just above the altitude at which the highest-flying passenger jets cruise, there is a fragile layer of naturally occurring gas that shields all life on Earth from the deadly effects of the ultraviolet radiation emitted by the sun.

This is the ozone shield, a belt of gas — specifically ozone, or O3, which is made of three oxygen atoms — formed by the natural interaction of solar ultraviolet radiation with O2, the oxygen we breathe.

Without it, we’d all be cooked. In the words of the UN Environment Program’s Ozone Secretariat, “long-term exposure to high levels of UV-B threatens human health and damages most animals, plants and microbes, so the ozone layer protects all life on Earth.”

But now, after decades of battling to save it — and us — scientists have announced that the hole in the ozone layer, which was detected in the 1980s, is healing.

The announcement this month is a victory for one of the greatest international scientific collaborations the world has ever seen. And, as the world struggles to tackle climate change, it is a timely and hugely encouraging demonstration of what the international community can achieve when it really puts its mind to something.

As the nations of the world prepare to gather at the UN Climate Change Conference, COP28, in the UAE, where in November they will be expected to account for the progress they have made toward the climate-change goals set by the 2015 Paris Agreement, the brilliant success of the ozone-saving 1987 Montreal Protocol can only be an inspiration.




A scientist launches a research balloon at Australia’s Giles Weather Station. (Shutterstock)

The ozone layer, and its role in absorbing the sun’s ultraviolet radiation, was first identified by two French physicists, Charles Fabry and Henri Buisson, in 1913, but it was not until 1974 that an article in the journal Nature warned that we were in danger of destroying it.

Chemists F. Sherwood Rowland, of the University of California Irvine, and Mario Molina, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, discovered that human-created gases, such as the chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, used in appliances and products such as fridges and aerosols, were destroying ozone.

In 1995, Rowland and Molina, together with Dutch scientist Paul Crutzen, were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry “for their work in atmospheric chemistry, particularly concerning the formation and decomposition of ozone.”

But, the Nobel citation continued, “the real shock came” in 1985, when scientists with the British Antarctic Survey, which had been monitoring the Antarctic ozone layer since 1957, detected “a drastic depletion of the ozone layer over the Antarctic.”

The size of the hole identified over the survey’s Halley and Faraday Antarctic research stations seemed to vary, which at first was a puzzle.

It is now understood, the BAS explains, “that during the polar winter, clouds form in the Antarctic ozone layer and chemical reactions in the clouds activate ozone-destroying substances.

“When sunlight returns in the spring, these substances — mostly chlorine and bromine from compounds such as CFCs and halons — take part in efficient catalytic reactions that destroy ozone at around 1 percent per day.”

The discovery “changed the world.” NASA satellites were used to confirm that “not only was the hole over British research stations, but it covered the entire Antarctic continent.”

This was the so-called “ozone hole” and, as Crutzen noted in his 1995 Nobel lecture, “it was a close call.”

He said: “Had Joe Farman and his colleagues from the British Antarctic Survey not persevered in making their measurements in the harsh Antarctic environment … the discovery of the ozone hole may have been substantially delayed and there may have been far less urgency to reach international agreement on the phasing out of CFC production.”

It was the work of the survey that led to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, an agreement, adopted in 1987, that regulated the production and consumption of nearly 100 man-made chemicals identified as “ozone depleting substances.”

“There had been suggestions in the 1960s and 1970s that you could put gases into the atmosphere which would destroy ozone,” atmospheric scientist Professor John Pyle, former head of chemistry at the University of Cambridge and one of the four international co-chairs on the Scientific Assessment Panel for the Montreal Protocol, told Arab News.

“At the time there was also concern about the oxides of nitrogen from high-flying supersonic aircraft, such as Concorde, which could destroy ozone.




This time-lapse photo shows the path of an ozonesonde as it rises into the atmosphere in the South Pole. (Courtesy of Robert Schwarz/South Pole, 2017)

“But after Rowland and Molina published their paper, suggesting that CFC gases could get high enough up into the atmosphere to destroy ozone, there was about a decade during which this was just a theoretical idea before, thanks to the British Antarctic Survey, the ozone hole was discovered.”

The global reaction, choreographed by the UN and the World Meteorological Organization, was almost startlingly rapid.

The British Antarctic Survey paper was published in 1985, and by 1987 the Montreal Protocol had been agreed. In the words of the UN Environment Program: “The protocol is considered to be one of the most successful environmental agreements of all time.

“What the parties to the protocol have managed to accomplish since 1987 is unprecedented, and it continues to provide an inspiring example of what international cooperation at its best can achieve.”

Without doubt, millions of people have lived longer, healthier lives thanks to the Montreal Protocol. In 2019, the US Environmental Protection Agency estimated that in the US alone the protocol had prevented 280 million cases of skin cancer, 1.6 million deaths, and 45 million cases of cataracts.




Combo image released by NASA's Earth Observatory on Dec. 1, 2009, showing the size and shape of the ozone hole each year in 1979 (L) and in 2009. (AFP file)

The battle is not over, however. It will take another four decades for the ozone layer to fully recover, according to the latest four-yearly report from the UN-backed Scientific Assessment Panel to the Montreal Protocol on Ozone Depleting Substances, which was published this month.

But according the “Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion: 2022” report: “The phase out of nearly 99 percent of banned ozone-depleting substances has succeeded in safeguarding the ozone layer, leading to notable recovery of the ozone layer in the upper stratosphere and decreased human exposure to harmful ultraviolet (UV) rays from the sun.”

If current policies remain in place, it adds, “the ozone layer is expected to recover to 1980 values” — that is, before the appearance of the ozone hole — “by around 2066 over the Antarctic, by 2045 over the Arctic, and by 2040 for the rest of the world.”




Ozone timelines from the UNEP's Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion report of 2022.

This is “fantastic news,” Meg Seki, executive secretary of the UN Environment Program’s Ozone Secretariat, told Arab News. And it has had an additional benefit in the fight against global warming.

In 2016, an additional agreement, known as the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol, resulted in the scaling down of production and consumption of hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, the compounds that were introduced to replace banned CFCs but which were found to be powerful climate change gases. It is estimated that by 2100, the Kigali Amendment will have helped to prevent up to 0.5 degrees Celsius of global warming.

“The impact the Montreal Protocol has had on climate-change mitigation cannot be overstressed,” said Seki. “Over the past 35 years, the protocol has become a true champion for the environment.”




Delegates converse during the 28th meeting of the Parties to the Montreal Protocol in Kigali, Rwanda, on Oct. 13, 2016. (AFP file)

It is also a shining example of what could be achieved in the battle against climate change.

Sept. 16 each year is the UN’s International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer. As Antonio Guterres, the UN’s secretary-general, said as he marked the occasion in 2021: “The Montreal Protocol … has done its job well over the past three decades. The ozone layer is on the road to recovery.”

He added: “The cooperation we have seen under the Montreal Protocol is exactly what is needed now to take on climate change, an equally existential threat to our societies.”

 


Ukraine demands emergency UN meeting over Putin nuclear plan

Ukraine demands emergency UN meeting over Putin nuclear plan
Updated 26 March 2023

Ukraine demands emergency UN meeting over Putin nuclear plan

Ukraine demands emergency UN meeting over Putin nuclear plan
  • Putin said his plan was triggered by a UK decision this past week to provide Ukraine with armor-piercing rounds containing depleted uranium

KYIV: Ukraine’s government on Sunday called for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council to “counter the Kremlin’s nuclear blackmail” after Russian President Vladimir Putin revealed plans to station tactical atomic weapons in Belarus.
One Ukrainian official said Russia “took Belarus as a nuclear hostage.”
Further heightening tensions, an explosion deep inside Russia wounded three people Sunday. Russian authorities blamed a Ukrainian drone for the blast, which damaged residential buildings in a town just 175 kilometers (110 miles) south of Moscow.
Russia has said the plan to station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus comes in response to the West’s increasing military support for Ukraine. Putin announced the plan in a TV interview that aired Saturday, saying it was triggered by a UK decision this past week to provide Ukraine with armor-piercing rounds containing depleted uranium.
Putin argued that by deploying its tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, Russia was following the lead of the United States. He noted that Washington has nuclear weapons based in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkiye.
“We are doing what they have been doing for decades, stationing them in certain allied countries, preparing the launch platforms and training their crews,” he said.
Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry condemned the move in a statement Sunday and demanded an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council.
“Ukraine expects effective action to counter the Kremlin’s nuclear blackmail by the UK, China, the US and France,” the statement read, saying these countries “have a special responsibility” regarding nuclear aggression.
“The world must be united against someone who endangers the future of human civilization,” the statement said.
Ukraine has not commented on Sunday’s explosion inside Russia. It left a crater about 15 meters (50 feet) in diameter and five meters deep (16 feet), according to media reports.
Russian state-run news agency Tass reported authorities identified the drone as a Ukrainian Tu-141. The Soviet-era drone was reintroduced in Ukraine in 2014, and has a range of about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles).
The explosion took place in the town of Kireyevsk in the Tula region, about 300 kilometers (180 miles) from the border with Ukraine. Russia’s Defense Ministry said the drone crashed after an electronic jamming system disabled its navigation.
Similar drone attacks have been common during the war, although Ukraine hardly ever acknowledges responsibility. On Monday, Russia said Ukrainian drones attacked civilian facilities in the town of Dzhankoi in Russia-annexed Crimea. Ukraine’s military said several Russian cruise missiles were destroyed, but did not specifically claim responsibility.
In December, the Russian military reported several Ukrainian drone attacks on long-range bomber bases deep inside Russia. The Russian Defense Ministry said the drones were shot down, but acknowledged that their debris damaged some aircraft and killed several servicemen.
Also, Russian authorities have reported attacks by small drones in the Bryansk and Belgorod regions on the border with Ukraine.
On Saturday, Putin argued that Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has long asked to have nuclear weapons in his country again to counter NATO. Belarus shares borders with three NATO members — Latvia, Lithuania and Poland — and Russia used Belarusian territory as a staging ground to send troops into neighboring Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022.
Both Lukashenko’s support of the war and Putin’s plans to station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus has been denounced by the Belarusian opposition.
Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, tweeted Sunday that Putin’s announcement was “a step toward internal destabilization” of Belarus that maximized “the level of negative perception and public rejection” of Russia and Putin in Belarusian society. The Kremlin, Danilov added, “took Belarus as a nuclear hostage.”
Tactical nuclear weapons are intended for use on the battlefield and have a short range and a low yield compared with much more powerful nuclear warheads fitted to long-range missiles. Russia plans to maintain control over the ones it sends to Belarus, and construction of storage facilities for them will be completed by July 1, Putin said.
Russia has stored its tactical nuclear weapons at dedicated depots on its territory, and moving part of the arsenal to a storage facility in Belarus would up the ante in the Ukrainian conflict by placing them closer to Russian aircraft and missiles already stationed there.
The US said it would “monitor the implications” of Putin’s announcement. So far, Washington hasn’t seen “any indications Russia is preparing to use a nuclear weapon,” National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said.
In Germany, the foreign ministry called it a “further attempt at nuclear intimidation,” German news agency dpa reported late Saturday. The ministry went on to say that “the comparison drawn by President Putin to NATO’s nuclear participation is misleading and cannot be used to justify the step announced by Russia.”


French PM offers to meet opposition, unions amid pension crisis

French PM offers to meet opposition, unions amid pension crisis
Updated 26 March 2023

French PM offers to meet opposition, unions amid pension crisis

French PM offers to meet opposition, unions amid pension crisis
  • PM pledged not to use constitutional powers to adopt legislation without a vote again except for on budget bills

PARIS: French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne plans to meet with opposition leaders and trade unions in the hope of ending weeks of protests against a new pension law, her office said on Sunday.
Demonstrations against the pension reform, which will raise the retirement age by two years, turned violent after the government pushed through the legislation this month without a final parliamentary vote.
President Emmanuel Macron has ruled out scrapping or delaying the legislation, tasking his prime minister with finding fresh support in parliament after the government failed to find enough votes for the bill.
Borne will meet with political party leaders and also aims to restart dialogue with unions over labor issues, her office said, without mentioning the pension bill.
The prime minister added in an interview with AFP that the meetings with opposition and union leaders would take place in the week starting April 3.
She also pledged not to use constitutional powers to adopt legislation without a vote again except for on budget bills, AFP said.
It is unclear if the government’s attempt to draw a line under the pension crisis will calm a majority of the public hostile to the reform and demonstrators exasperated by the adoption of the legislation without a final vote.
Unions have scheduled a 10th day of nationwide protests against the pension law on Tuesday, after a previous day of action last Thursday saw the most violent clashes yet with police.
The head of the CFDT union, Laurent Berger, last week proposed that Macron pause the law for six months to seek a possible compromise.


Albania calls for amnesty for ‘honest’ citizens in the UK illegally

Albania calls for amnesty for ‘honest’ citizens in the UK illegally
Updated 26 March 2023

Albania calls for amnesty for ‘honest’ citizens in the UK illegally

Albania calls for amnesty for ‘honest’ citizens in the UK illegally
  • Interior minister asks British counterpart for countrymen to be given work visas

LONDON: Albania has called for an amnesty for its “honest” citizens living in the UK without visas as part of the agreement to tackle people-smuggling gangs and illegal migration, the Sunday Telegraph has reported.

Bledar Cuci, the Albanian interior minister, met his British counterpart Suella Braverman during a visit to the UK with Prime Minister Edi Rama this week. He stated that the problem of illegal migration could not be solved unless the UK government “improved” its approach to legal settlement.

Cuci requested that the UK’s work visa scheme be relaxed to allow more Albanians to enter for employment, including seasonal work, as well as an amnesty for those who were already in the country without permission. 

“I asked her to give an amnesty for all Albanians without a visa but are honest without criminal records. Albanians are a vital community and well-integrated in the UK,” Cuci said. “It is unacceptable to single out the Albanian community in the UK and to be stereotyped due to some illegals.”

A source close to Braverman told the Telegraph that she was “happy to meet with minister Cuci to discuss the UK’s relations with Albania. She explained that Britons would always welcome Albanians traveling to the UK legally, and that she had great respect for their country. 

“She also listened to his proposals with interest,” the source added. 

Roughly one-third of the 45,700 people who crossed the English Channel in small boats in 2022 were Albanians. Around 800 of them have since been deported and thousands more remain in detention.

The UK has an agreement with Albania to expedite the return of those who cross the channel, and another for the early deportation of all eligible Albanian inmates in British prisons so that they can serve their remaining sentence in their home country.


Afghan woman in Glasgow fears for her life after UK rejects her visa

Afghan woman in Glasgow fears for her life after UK rejects her visa
Updated 26 March 2023

Afghan woman in Glasgow fears for her life after UK rejects her visa

Afghan woman in Glasgow fears for her life after UK rejects her visa
  • Maryam Amiri says she’s been threatened for criticizing the Taliban
  • Glasgow MP slams Home Office for lack of care, professionalism

LONDON: An Afghan woman living in Glasgow fears being deported to her country after her new visa was rejected by the Home Office.

Maryam Amiri has urged the UK government to reconsider its decision.

Amiri told Sky News that her family has already received threats due to her views on the Taliban and its decision on women’s rights. She also stated that her husband, who is also Afghan, works for British forces and that forcing either of them to return would be dangerous.

The Home Office said that Amiri is not eligible for leave to remain under the five-year or 10-year partner route, despite having been granted two shorter visa periods since 2016, PA News Agency reported.

The decision notice also said that Amiri does not satisfy the minimum income requirement and that the Home Secretary has not seen any evidence of “insurmountable obstacles” to the couple continuing their lives together in Afghanistan.

“I have always been vocal against the Taliban and their brutal regime,” Amiri told the PA News Agency.

Amiri also disagreed with the Home Office’s decision to return her to a country “where women are not secure,” particularly women who have “always been vocal against the Taliban.”

“I feel threatened and am scared of losing my life if I go back,” she said.

“I have put my life in trouble by opposing the Taliban and their activities,” Amiri added.

Alison Thewliss, MP for Glasgow Central, slammed the Home Office decision, saying Amiri’s return to life in Afghanistan was “dangerous” and failed to account for the country’s changes since 2016.

“The idea that you can just send people back and everything will be fine, that’s just not sensible, not practical,” Thewliss told Sky News.

“It’s dangerous and the Home Office should really know better before putting something like this out,” Thewliss added.

She continued: “I think her case highlights just the lack of care, the lack of attention, the lack of professionalism in the Home Office.”

Amiri’s case was raised in the House of Commons with UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who said it would be inappropriate for him to comment on an individual case.

Concerning Amira’s visa, a Home Office spokesperson told Sky News: “All visa applications are decided on individual merits. We don’t routinely comment on individual cases.”


Ex-boxing champ Amir Khan thought he could die during London robbery

Former world boxing champion Amir Khan has said he feared his children would grow up fatherless after he was robbed at gunpoint.
Former world boxing champion Amir Khan has said he feared his children would grow up fatherless after he was robbed at gunpoint.
Updated 26 March 2023

Ex-boxing champ Amir Khan thought he could die during London robbery

Former world boxing champion Amir Khan has said he feared his children would grow up fatherless after he was robbed at gunpoint.
  • Olympic silver medalist was robbed at gunpoint for watch during Ramadan last year
  • He feared his children would grow up ‘without their dad,’ has since moved his family to Dubai

LONDON: Former world boxing champion Amir Khan has said he feared his children would grow up fatherless after he was robbed at gunpoint in London last year.

Khan, 36, had been dining at the Sahara Grill restaurant with his wife Faryal Makhdoom, 31, and their friend Omar Khalid to break their Ramadan fast on April 18, before Khan and Makhdoom were confronted outside by a gunman.

Dante Campbell, 20, stole a Franck Muller watch worth up to £70,000 ($85,000), having pointed a gun at Khan and instructed him to “take off the watch.”

The watch — a bespoke present made of rose gold and encrusted with diamonds — has not been recovered.

Khan, originally from Bolton in the north of England, told The Sun: “In that moment, you think the worst … that the kids could be growing up without their dad, that Faryal would be raising them on her own.

“Your life flashes before your eyes. I leant my head to the right because I thought, if he is going to shoot me, he can shoot the side of my head. I don’t want to see the bullet coming.”

Khan, an Olympic silver medalist in 2004 who retired from professional boxing last year having won 34 of his 40 professional fights, said: “It was the first time I’ve ever seen a gun in my life. I could see down the barrel. I remember looking back seeing where my wife was. She ran back on the road and screamed ‘help!’”

Makhdoom told The Sun that she thought she and her husband “were going to die on the spot.”

Asked if he should have used his boxing abilities to fight off Campbell, Khan said: “I’ve got a family. It’s only a watch. My life means more to me. When you have kids, you have a priority to make sure they are looked after. I am the breadwinner for the family.

“If I was with the kids, I don’t know what I would’ve done. Maybe I would have panicked and tried to run.”

Khan added that the incident had forced him to relocate his family to Dubai, and that when back in the UK, he spent £600 per day on security.

“I love England,” he said. “I won a medal for the country, but I stay in Dubai now because it’s the only place I feel safe.”

Campbell and his getaway driver, 25-year-old Ahmed Bana — both from north London — admitted conspiracy to commit robbery and possession of an imitation firearm at their trial at Snaresbrook Crown Court. They are due to be sentenced at a later date.

Two men accused of being “spotters” inside the restaurant for Campbell and Bana to target Khan — Ismail Mohamed, 24, and Nurul Amin, 25 — both from north London, were acquitted of conspiracy to commit robbery.