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Testimony of
The Honorable Richard E. Benedick,
Ambassador, ret.
United States Senate
Committee on Environment & Public Works
The Role of Science in
Environmental Policy Making
September 28, 2005
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"The Case of the Montreal Protocol: Science Serving
Public Policy"
Since 1994, I have been President of the National
Council for Science and the Environment (NCSE), an
organization dedicated to improving the scientific
basis for environmental decision making that is supported
by over 500 universities, scientific societies, state
and local governments, corporations, chambers of commerce,
foundations and civic organizations.
During the 1980s, I served under President Reagan
as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Environment,
Health and Natural Resources. In 1985, I was designated
by Secretary of State George Shultz and then-Assistant
Secretary John Negroponte to be chief U.S. negotiator
for a treaty to regulate certain chemical substances
suspected of depleting the stratospheric ozone layer.
I later wrote a book on the subject, Ozone Diplomacy,
which was published by Harvard University Press (1991,
revised ed. 1998) and Kyogo Chosakai (Japan, 1999),
and was selected by McGraw-Hill for an anthology of
environmental classics of the twentieth century.
Introduction: An Historic Agreement
The ozone history illustrates the critical role that
science and scientists can play in the development
of public policy under conditions of risk and uncertainty.
Yet, when the negotiations began on the treaty to
control use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), few gamblers
would have wagered that they could succeed.
CFCs and their related bromine halon compounds seemed
to be ideal man-made chemicals. Invented in the 1930s,
they are stable, nontoxic, nonflammable, non-corrosive,
and relatively inexpensive to produce - all qualities
that made them uniquely suited for a myriad of consumer
and industrial applications. Over the years, they
found more and more uses in thousands of products
and processes - in pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, spray
cans, agriculture, petroleum, microchips, electronics,
automotive, defense, aircraft, insulation, plastic
foam, aerospace, telecommunications, refrigeration,
and air conditioning, to name a few. CFCs became virtually
synonymous with modern standards of living.
The scientific, economic, technological and political
issues involved in the negotiations were staggeringly
complex. Billions of dollars of international investment
and hundreds of thousands of jobs worldwide were involved
in production and consumption of CFCs and halons.
Powerful governments in Europe, Japan and the Soviet
Union aligned with global economic interests in adamant
opposition to controlling CFCs, maintaining that technological
alternatives were nonexistent, or too costly, or unfeasible.
The then-twelve nation European Community (EC) was
the primary opponent of action. Its ozone position
was based largely on the self-serving data and contentions
of a few major companies - including Britain's Imperial
Chemical Industries (ICI), France's Atochem, and Germany's
Hoechst. European industry's primary objective was
to preserve market dominance and to avoid the costs
of switching to alternative products for as long as
possible. Epitomizing the close EC industry-government
linkages, company executives often served on official
delegations. Indeed, during the protocol negotiations
we actually came across an official EC instruction
drafted on an Atochem corporate letterhead.
Most other governments and peoples were unaware or
indifferent to an arcane threat occurring 30 miles
above the earth's surface. As an Indian diplomat admonished
me early in the negotiations: "Rich man's problem
- rich man's solution."
Perhaps most significant of all, during the negotiations
the arguments for controlling CFCs rested on unproven
scientific theories that these chemicals could damage
the stratospheric ozone layer that protects life on
earth from harmful solar radiation. The science remained
speculative, based on projections from still-evolving
computer models of imperfectly understood atmospheric
processes - models that yielded varying, sometimes
contradictory predictions each time that they were
refined.
Despite the significant growth in emissions of CFCs,
thirty years of recorded measurements had not demonstrated
any statistically meaningful ozone depletion over
mid-latitudes. The models did not even predict significant
global depletion, at existing levels of emissions,
for at least the next twenty years. Moreover, not
only was there no evidence of increased levels of
dangerous radiation reaching earth's surface, but
such measurements as existed actually showed reduced
radiation. During the negotiations, the seasonal "ozone
hole" over Antarctica, while alarming, was considered
by most scientists to be an anomaly, since it did
not conform to the theoretical ozone depletion models
and could possibly have had other than anthropogenic
causes.
Nevertheless, after contentious international negotiations,
compounded by unexpected late controversy from within
the U.S. administration, a strong control treaty was
signed in Montreal in September 1987. The treaty signing
attracted worldwide media attention, and it was hailed
in the United States Senate as "the most significant
international environmental agreement in history."
President Reagan became the first head of state to
endorse the Montreal Protocol, pronouncing it "a
monumental achievement of science and diplomacy,"
and the treaty was unanimously ratified by the Senate.
The most extraordinary aspect of the Montreal Protocol
was that it imposed substantial short-term economic
costs in order to protect human health and the environment
against speculative future dangers -- dangers that
rested on scientific theories rather than on proven
facts. Unlike environmental agreements of the past,
this was not a response to harmful developments or
events, but rather preventive action on a global scale.
Within less than six years after the negotiations
began in late 1986, the Montreal Protocol had been
ratified by more than 100 (later over 180) nations.
Gradually unfolding scientific evidence of damage
to the ozone layer led to major revisions of the protocol,
expanding the list of controlled chemicals from 8
to over 90 and considerably shortening timetables
for reduction and phase out of the dangerous chemicals.
A veritable technological revolution was unleashed
that within a few years transformed entire industries.
The protocol also created the first-ever global environmental
fund to assist poorer nations, and promoted an unprecedented
North-South collaboration in developing and diffusing
new technologies that have now made most ozone-depleting
substances obsolete.
Even so, it was a near thing. For decades after their
discovery, no one had suspected that these multifaceted
wonder-chemicals could cause any harm. They had been
thoroughly tested by customary industrial standards
and declared completely safe. Possible effects thirty
miles above the earth had simply never been considered.
And, because the CFCs and halons have such long atmospheric
lifetimes, their deleterious impacts will still be
felt for decades, even after new emissions cease.
The Montreal Protocol is generally considered to
be the most successful environmental treaty in history.
The heads of the World Meteorological Organization
(WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme"
(UNEP) stated that "the action to defend the
ozone layer will rank as one of the great international
achievements of the century." Given the threats
to human life and the global economy that have been
averted through this landmark treaty, few would challenge
their statement as hyperbole.
The Role of Science and Scientists
Unquestionably the indispensable element in the success
of the Montreal Protocol was the role of science and
scientists. Without the curiosity and courage of a
handful of researchers in the mid-1970s, the world
might have learned too late of the hidden dangers
linked with rapidly expanding use of CFCs.
Ozone, whose existence was unknown until 1839, has
been characterized as "the single most important
chemically active trace gas in the earth's atmosphere."
Two singular characteristics of this remote, unstable,
and toxic gas make it so critical to human society.
First, certain wavelengths of ultraviolet radiation
(UV-B) that can damage DNA and the immune system and
can cause cancer in living cells are absorbed by the
thin layer of ozone molecules scattered throughout
the atmosphere; the harmful radiation is thus prevented
from reaching the earth's surface. And second, differing
quantities of ozone at different altitudes have major
implications for global climate. In sum, human health,
agriculture and livestock, fisheries, biological diversity,
and many materials would be significantly impacted
by damage to the ozone shield. The ozone layer, at
its historic natural concentrations and diffusion,
is essential to life as it currently exists on earth.
In 1973, two University of Michigan scientists, Richard
Stolarski and Ralph Cicerone, in the course of examining
possible effects of chemical emissions from National
Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) rockets,
theorized that chlorine in the stratosphere could
unleash a complex chain reaction that would continually
destroy ozone over a period of decades. Fortunately,
very little "free chlorine" was thought
to exist at that altitude.
However, a year later, Mario Molina and Sherwood
Rowland at the University of California, Irvine, became
intrigued with some peculiar properties of chlorofluoro-
carbons. They discovered that, unlike almost all other
gases, CFCs were not chemically destroyed or rained
out in the lower atmosphere, but rather migrated slowly
up into the stratosphere. There they remained for
many decades -- some variants for more than a century.
The two researchers concluded that the man-made CFCs,
which are not naturally present at this altitude,
are eventually broken down by radiation and thereby
release large quantities of free chlorine.
The combined implications of these two hypotheses
were nothing less than sensational: the protective
ozone shield would be seriously compromised.
The enhanced levels of ultraviolet radiation that
would then penetrate the atmosphere and reach earth's
surface could have potentially disastrous impacts.
The Rowland-Molina theories caused a firestorm of
criticism and controversy in the scientific and business
communities. They were later vindicated by the 1995
Nobel Prize in Chemistry (together with Paul Crutzen
of the Max Planck Institute), but it is worth noting
that the first popular book on this subject, published
in 1978, was entitled The Ozone War.
Astonishingly, the research paths leading to the
suspicion that the stratospheric ozone layer was in
jeopardy had been serendipitous. The scientists had
not set out intentionally to condemn chlorofluorocarbons.
Notwithstanding the initial controversy, the serious
theoretical dangers prompted a wave of new scientific
research over the following years.
It would be difficult to exaggerate the complexity
of the research effort. Ozone itself amounts to considerably
less than one part per million of the total atmosphere,
with 90 percent of it located above six miles in altitude.
The intrinsically unstable ozone molecules are continually
being created and destroyed by complex natural forces
involving solar radiation and interactions with even
more minute quantities of other gases. Moreover, stratospheric
ozone concentrations can fluctuate on a daily, seasonal,
and solar-cyclical basis, and there are significant
geographical as well as altitudinal variations.
Amidst all these fluxes, scientists faced a formidable
challenge in predicting, and then detecting, the minuscule
"signal" of the beginning of a possible
long-term downturn in stratospheric ozone as postulated
by the theory. This necessitated the development of
ever more sophisticated computer models to simulate
the stratospheric interplay among radiative, chemical,
and dynamic processes such as wind and temperature
-- for decades and centuries into the future. In addition,
intricate observation and measuring devices had to
be created and fitted onto aircraft, satellites, and
rockets to monitor remote gases in quantities as minute
as parts per trillion.
To fully understand the implications of a diminishing
ozone layer, scientists had to venture far beyond
atmospheric chemistry: they had to examine our planet
as a system of interrelated physical, chemical and
biological processes on land, in water, and in the
atmosphere - processes that are themselves influenced
by economic, political, and social forces. The Montreal
Protocol thus became a truly multi- and interdisciplinary
effort. Over the years, researching the dangers and
solutions involved not only chemists and physicists,
but also meteorologists, oceanographers, biologists,
oncologists, economists, epidemiologists, soil chemists,
toxicologists, agronomists, pharmacologists, botanists,
entomologists, and electrical, chemical, automotive
and materials engineers.
The Protocol in Transition
Even as the negotiators were hammering out the final
compromises in Montreal in September 1987, an unprecedented
international scientific expedition was under way
in Antarctica. Using specially designed equipment
placed in balloons, satellites, a DC-8 flying laboratory,
and a converted high-altitude U-2 spy aircraft, scientists
were tracking stratospheric chemical reactions and
measuring minute concentrations of gases. Preliminary
results, announced about two weeks after the protocol's
signing, indicated high stratospheric chlorine presence
and the worst-ever seasonal drop in Antarctic ozone.
Six months later, in March 1988, a joint NASA-NOAA
press conference released the Ozone Trends Panel Report,
a comprehensive international scientific assessment
of all previous air- and ground-based stratospheric
trace gas measurements, including those from the 1987
Antarctic expedition. The conclusions were stunning:
no longer a theory, ozone layer depletion had at last
been substantiated by hard evidence. The analysis
established that between 1969 and 1986, stratospheric
ozone over heavily populated regions of the Northern
Hemisphere, including North America, Europe, and the
Soviet Union, China, and Japan, had diminished by
small but significant amounts. And CFCs and halons
were now implicated beyond dispute -- including responsibility
for the ozone collapse over Antarctica.
The new scientific findings were profoundly disquieting.
The most alarming implication was that the models
on which the Montreal Protocol was based had proven
incapable of predicting either the chlorine-induced
Antarctic phenomenon or the extent of ozone depletion
elsewhere. Most probably, therefore, they were underestimating
future ozone losses.
Scientific studies now indicated that if existing
atmospheric concentrations of chlorine and bromine
were merely stabilized, the Antarctic ozone loss would
be permanent. In order for ozone levels over Antarctica
gradually to recover, and to avoid possibly crossing
similar unforeseen thresholds in the future, it would
be necessary to restore atmospheric chlorine concentrations
(then at three parts per billion and rising) to levels
at least as low as those prevailing in the early 1970s,
namely, two parts per billion.
The original CFCs and halons would be phased out more
rapidly than any of the negotiators at Montreal could
have dreamed possible.
Although the work of protecting the ozone layer is
still not completely finished, the major challenges
have been successfully addressed. The industrialized
countries have either phased out, or are in process
of phasing out, all of the major ozone-depleting substances
as well as the less-damaging transitional chemicals.
Developing countries have also accepted phase-out
schedules as a great wave of new technologies is being
diffused around the world.
Now, the ozone layer is slowly beginning to recover.
Lessons for Science
Without modern science and technology, the world would
have remained unaware of an ozone problem until it
was too late. Science became the driving force behind
ozone policy, but it was not sufficient for scientists
merely to publish their findings. In order for the
theories to be taken seriously and lead to concrete
policies, scientists had to interact closely with
government policy makers and diplomatic negotiators.
This meant that they had to leave the familiar atmosphere
of their laboratories and assume an unaccustomed shared
responsibility for the policy implications of their
research. The history of the Montreal Protocol is
filled with instances of scientific panels being called
upon to analyze and make informed judgments about
the effectiveness and consequences of alternative
remedial strategies and policy measures.
International scientific consensus was also essential.
In effect, a community of scientists from many nations,
dedicated to scientific objectivity, experienced through
their research a mutual concern for protecting the
planet's ozone layer that transcended divergent national
allegiances. The development of an accepted common
body of data and analysis was the prerequisite for
a political solution among negotiating governments
whose initial positions seemed irreconcilable.
In 1984, a remarkable international collaborative
research effort was launched by the NASA and the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), in
cooperation with the WMO, UNEP, the Federal Aviation
Administration, the German Ministry for Research and
Technology, and the Commission of the European Communities.
Approximately 150 scientists of various nationalities
worked under U.S. scientists' leadership for more
than a year. The resulting study, Atmospheric Ozone
1985, was the most ambitious analysis of the stratosphere
ever undertaken: three volumes containing nearly 1,100
pages of text and eighty-six pages of references.
This was followed by even more extensive international
studies.
The Montreal Protocol later institutionalized this
concept by establishing independent international
expert panels to periodically assess scientific, technological,
economic, and environmental developments and thereby
guide the negotiators in the implementation and revision
of the treaty. Over the years, thousands of scientific
and industry experts from dozens of countries participated
in the effort to learn more about both the dangers
and the possible technological solutions. This proved
to be a central element in the protocol's success,
facilitating agreement by negotiators on additional
controls to protect the ozone layer. In effect, the
protocol was deliberately designed to be a dynamic
process of narrowing the ranges of uncertainties through
continuing focused research, and adjusting the treaty
provisions accordingly, rather than being a static
one-time solution.
A major lesson from the ozone history is that Nature
does not always provide policy makers with convenient
early-warning signals of disaster, as exemplified
in the case of the Antarctic "ozone hole."
In 1985, British scientists published findings based
on balloon measurements of ozone made at Halley Bay
in Antarctica. It appeared that stratospheric ozone
concentrations during the Antarctic early spring (September-October)
were about 40 percent lower than during the 1960s.
While the ozone layer recovered toward the end of
each spring, the extent of the seasonal ozone collapse,
or "ozone hole" (i.e., a portion of the
stratosphere in which greatly diminished ozone levels
were measured), had apparently accelerated beginning
in 1979.
Total chlorine concentrations had been slowly increasing
for decades from its natural level of 0.6 parts per
billion. However, no effect on the ozone layer was
evident until the concentration exceeded two parts
per billion, which triggered the totally unexpected
collapse over Antarctica. In other words, chlorine
concentrations had tripled with no impact whatsoever
on ozone until they crossed an unanticipated threshold.
This nonlinear response has obvious implications for
the potential dangers of other types of anthropogenic
interference with the planet's natural cycles and
resources.
The British group had actually initially hesitated
to publish their findings because they were considered
too fantastic. Ironically, it was later discovered
that U.S. and Japanese space satellites had not signaled
the ozone collapse because, in order not to deluge
scientists with unmanageable masses of data, satellite
computers were programmed to automatically reject
as anomalies any measurements so far below the "error"
range of existing predictive models!
The role of scientists in the ozone history also
provided some useful lessons for the climate change
issue. During the 1980s, scientific assessments on
climate change appeared regularly, under the aegis
of WMO and UNEP, from a small group of largely self-selected
scientists called the Advisory Group on Greenhouse
Gases. In the summer of 1987, while preparing for
the conclusive final negotiation in Montreal, I recommended
that the U.S. propose establishing a formalized international
assessment body on climate change, similar to what
we were doing on the ozone issue. My belief was that
findings would be more credible coming from a larger
and more diverse group of scientists operating under
intergovernmental auspices.
This idea attracted unexpected allies and opponents.
Some traditionally anti-environmental officials within
the Reagan administration endorsed the concept, anticipating
that it would provide governments with more control
over the science. In contrast, environmental groups
feared that the process would become distorted by
politics. My own feeling, grounded in the ozone experience,
was that the great majority of scientists were unlikely
to allow themselves to be influenced by political,
ideological or commercial interests, and that governments
for their part would have greater respect for the
results of a comprehensive international process of
investigation and peer review. The subsequent experience
of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,
founded in 1988, has largely confirmed this hope.
Lessons for the Private Sector
The history of the Montreal Protocol also underscored
the importance of having sufficient funding for all
levels of science, from curiosity-driven basic research
to applied engineering solutions. Initially, most
research funding came from government sources, in
particular NASA and NOAA in connection with their
space-related research.
But this was not always the case. In 1985, when the
U.K. Government was still strongly opposed to meaningful
controls over CFCs, it ceased financing, for obvious
political motives, the British scientific mission
in Antarctica that had uncovered the "ozone hole."
Significantly, the financial gap was filled by the
U.S. Chemical Manufacturers Association; the American
chemical companies hoped that controls would not be
necessary, but they wanted to resolve the uncertainties
-- one way or the other.
In general, American industry throughout the ozone
negotiations was more pragmatic than ideological.
Recognizing the growing scientific consensus, the
Alliance for Responsible CFC Policy, a coalition of
about 500 producer and user companies, announced its
acceptance of international controls in September
1986, three months before the formal negotiation process
actually opened. Eight months later, American industry
stayed conspicuously aloof from the campaign by anti-environmental
elements within the administration to undermine a
meaningful treaty, and subsequently fully endorsed
President Reagan's strong position for the climactic
September 1987 negotiation in Montreal.
The financial and intellectual resources of the private
sector make its involvement and cooperation indispensable,
since society ultimately depends primarily on industry
to provide technological solutions. Technology is
dynamic, and not, as often implied by those who resist
change, a static element. If the market is left completely
on its own, it may not necessarily bring forth the
right technologies at the right time. Although the
1987 ozone protocol established targets that were
initially beyond the reach of best-available technologies,
the goals were in fact not unrealistic.
The Montreal Protocol was not, as some opponents
charged, a "radical" treaty. On the contrary,
it was an expression of faith in the market system.
The treaty employed realistic market incentives to
encourage technological innovation. The negotiators
effectively signaled to the marketplace that research
into solutions would now be profitable. Competitive
-- and collaborative -- forces then took over, and
solutions were developed much sooner and at considerably
lower cost than had earlier been predicted.
The protocol in fact stimulated a virtual technological
revolution in the international chemical, telecommunications,
pharmaceutical, and numerous other industries. By
providing CFC producers and users with the certainty
that the CFC market was destined to decline, the treaty
unleashed the creative energies and financial resources
of the private sector to find alternatives. Following
the protocol's signing, the chemical industry began
the race for substitutes. Four months after Montreal,
several hundred industry representatives participated
in a CFC-substitutes trade fair in Washington.
Some user industries did not wait for the chemical
companies to come up with substitutes; such companies
as Nortel, IBM and Motorola re-examined their manufacturing
processes and found ways to eliminate CFCs. In cooperation
with a small Florida company, AT&T announced a
new replacement for cleaning electronic circuit boards
that was derived from citrus fruit. Japanese and American
importers of electronics parts from Thailand, including
AT&T, Ford, Honda, and Toshiba, teamed up with
EPA and Japan's Ministry of Trade and Industry to
provide non-CFC technologies to their suppliers. More
than 40 multinational companies from eight countries,
including Asea Brown Boveri, British Petroleum, Hitachi,
and Honeywell, joined to help Viet Nam phase out CFCs.
Lessons for Credibility
Another lesson from the Montreal Protocol's success
was the importance of education: interpreting the
continuously evolving and sometimes confusing data
and communicating it intelligibly to the public, the
media, and political and legislative leaders. This
information flow mobilized public support for addressing
the potential dangers of a diminishing ozone layer,
and thereby promoted political consensus for both
funding research and for policy actions. The role
of the U.S. Congress was particularly critical in
organizing many public hearings on the ozone issue
over the years, and in commissioning several important
studies by the National Academy of Sciences.
In the 1980s, environmental organizations that favored
strong actions to protect the ozone layer generally
avoided invoking apocalypse in order to capture media
and public attention. As chief U.S. negotiator pressing
the official American position for strong controls
against the opposition of most of the other major
producing and consuming countries, I insisted that
our delegation in principle never exaggerate the scientific
case: let the science speak for itself, even when
it is not completely unambiguous. I wanted to preserve
our integrity and not present the opposition with
a gratuitous weapon against our position.
When some opponents of controlling CFCs within the
U.S. administration tried late in the negotiations
to reverse the strong American position (and, incidentally,
to dismiss me as chief negotiator), they belittled
the science and the dangers, claiming inter alia that
the problem could be solved by wearing cowboy hats
and sunglasses. The resultant ridicule and backlash
from the Congress, scientists, media, public, and
the White House itself eventually led to a personal
decision by President Reagan reaffirming the U.S.
position for strong controls.
Unfortunately, the lesson of scientific integrity
appears to have been lost in the debate over climate
change that began in the late 1980s. Some environmental
groups became overly alarmist in exaggerating the
case for global warming following the hot summer of
1988, and, later, by crusading for the Kyoto Protocol
as the only conceivable solution. This only engendered
a strong counter-reaction from some affected industrial
sectors. In addition, when the predicted dire consequences
of climate change did not emerge soon, the American
public - which in any case is accustomed to natural
seasonal weather extremes - became generally apathetic
toward possible long-term dangers.
For their part, skeptics of climate change were also
not immune to distortion. In an effort to discredit
the climate science, opponents repeatedly cite the
"Heidelberg Appeal," released by a nongovernmental
group at the United Nations Earth Summit in Johannesburg
in 2002, as definitive evidence that most of the scientific
community -- more than 4000 eminent international
scientist signatories, including over 70 Nobel Laureates
- rejects the idea that rising anthropogenic carbon
dioxide emissions could cause dangerous global climatic
consequences. In actuality, the one-page document
is a general treatise on the importance of science
and contains not a single reference to the climate
problem.
Lessons for Government
Some governments allowed commercial self-interest
to influence their interpretations of the science:
uncertainty was used as an excuse for delaying decisions.
Some political leaders, particularly those in Europe
with substantial chemical industries, were initially
prepared to accept speculative long-term environmental
risks rather than to impose the tangible near-term
costs entailed in limiting products seen as important
contributors to a modern standard of living. Short-range
political and economic concerns were, therefore, formidable
obstacles to cooperative international action based
upon the theory of ozone-depletion.
Other political leaders, however, including President
Reagan and the governments of Australia, Austria,
Canada, Finland, Denmark, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden
and Switzerland, decided to act even while there were
still scientific ambiguities, based on a balancing
of the risks and costs of delay.
\As early as 1977, the U.S. Congress had authorized
the Administrator of the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) in the Clean Air Act to regulate "any
substance … which in his judgment may reasonably
be anticipated to affect the stratosphere, especially
ozone in the stratosphere, if such effect may reasonably
be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare"
(emphasis added). This law attempted to balance the
scientific uncertainties with the risks of inaction.
And it opted for a low threshold to justify intervention:
the government was not obligated to prove conclusively
that a suspected substance could modify the stratosphere
or endanger health and environment. All that was required
was a standard of reasonable expectation. As Governor
Russell Peterson, a senior advisor to President Nixon,
had declared in reference to other potentially harmful
chemicals, CFCs, unlike U.S. citizens, would not be
considered innocent until proven guilty.
Unfortunately, current tools of economic analysis
are not fully adequate for evaluating the costs and
risks, and can be deceptive indicators; they are in
urgent need of reform. The customary methods of measuring
national income do not satisfactorily reflect societal
and ecological costs -- especially those far in the
future. Politicians should nevertheless resist the
tendency to assign excessive credibility to self-serving
economic interests who demand scientific certainty,
and who insist that, simply because dangers are remote,
they are therefore inconsequential.
By the time the evidence on such issues as ozone
layer depletion and climate change is beyond dispute,
the damage could be irreversible and it may be too
late to avoid serious harm to human life and draconian
future costs to society. The signatories at Montreal
risked imposing substantial short-run economic dislocations
even though the evidence was incomplete. The prudence
of their decision was vindicated when the scientific
models turned out to have actually underestimated
prospective ozone depletion. And, thanks to the ingenuity
of private entrepreneurs, the costs of action turned
out to be much lower than originally predicted.
Conclusion: Acting Under Uncertainty
The Montreal Protocol was by no means inevitable.
Knowledgeable observers had long believed it would
be impossible to achieve. The ozone negotiators confronted
formidable political, economic, and psychological
obstacles. The dangers of ozone depletion could touch
every nation and all life on earth over periods far
beyond politicians' normal time horizons. But although
the potential consequences were grave, they could
neither be measured nor predicted with certitude when
the diplomats began their work.
In the realm of international relations there will
always be resistance to change, and there will always
be uncertainties. Faced with global environmental
threats, governments may need to act while some major
questions remain unresolved. In achieving the Montreal
accord, consensus was forged and decisions were made
on a balancing of probabilities -- and the risks of
waiting for more complete evidence were finally deemed
to be too great.
"Politics," stated Lord Kennet during ozone
debates in the House of Lords, "is the art of
making good decisions on insufficient evidence."
The success of the Montreal Protocol stands as a beacon
of how science can help decision makers to overcome
conflicting political and economic interests and reach
solutions. The ozone history demonstrates that even
in the real world of ambiguity and imperfect knowledge,
the international community, with the assistance of
science, is capable of undertaking difficult and far-reaching
actions for the common good.
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