The God Species_ How the Planet Can Survive the Age of Humans - Mark Lynas [120]
So how did we manage to make such a good job of ozone regulation? First, the fallacies. There is a pernicious myth, widely believed in the environmental movement today, that tackling ozone depletion was in hindsight somehow “easy,” as if it was almost bound to happen. In fact, the negotiations were tortuous and extremely difficult. While the basic science was established as early as the mid-1970s, it was to be another decade before there was any breakthrough in international policymaking. During this decade of paralysis, the CFC industry fought hard and successfully to avoid any international controls on the production of ozone-depleting substances, and powerful blocs of countries stymied the attempts of some more enlightened governments to move forward more quickly with the protection of the ozone layer.
Another related myth is that the CFC industry switched away from opposing regulation when it realized that easily available substitutes could be manufactured and profited from. A rather conspiratorial variant of this theory posits that the chemicals company DuPont, the largest of the CFC producers, changed its position when it secured a patent on an important CFC substitute. The truth is much more challenging. Although it was widely known quite early on that developing substitutes to CFCs was technically feasible, all the major companies—including DuPont—stopped their research programs in the early 1980s. Why? Because they preferred to stall, and for as long as they believed regulation could be avoided the corporations decided it was better not to know about substitutes for fear that they would be forced to develop them. It was therefore generally believed by almost everyone, and frequently asserted by the companies, that developing substitutes for CFCs in the important areas of refrigeration, electronics, and foam-blowing would be prohibitively expensive.8
This deadlock could have continued for decades more, as it has to a large extent with climate. The industry was well organized and funded: In the U.S. it formed an Alliance for Responsible CFC Policy and ran campaigns targeting politicians and the media to emphasize its view that the science was uncertain and that ozone policy would be costly and economically damaging. Yet between 1985 and 1987 something dramatic changed that turned the whole situation upside down. By the time the Montreal Protocol was agreed, DuPont had stopped attacking ozone science and announced its support for strong curbs on CFC emissions, as had the Alliance for Responsible CFC Policy. Instead of trying to stymie progress, industry had turned into a partner for change and began an aggressive effort to develop and commercialize alternatives to CFCs: In 1988 DuPont announced that it would stop manufacturing CFCs altogether and instead supported a worldwide phaseout. There was no secret technological breakthrough: The company’s stock value actually declined after the announcement. The new regulations that DuPont supported were putting a $130 billion industry at risk. So why the switch?
Part of the answer was science. The discovery of the ozone hole in 1985 helped focus public awareness, as did the publication of satellite data that seemed to show substantial ozone losses over much wider areas. Much more of a difference was made by the publication of authoritative scientific assessments by NASA and the World Meteorological Organization, which underlined the scientific consensus that further growth in CFC production would bring major damage to the ozone layer. These “blue books” on the science helped convince vacillating policymakers that the ozone issue had to be tackled, cemented public support, and made a denialist industry position look environmentally irresponsible.
But there was more to it than science. Authoritative assessments were important because they could form a common point of reference,