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By Root 812 0

a shared standard for everyone—even industry. But another force was gathering, and that force was the one that made the real difference. This was political leadership. What happened with the Vienna Convention in 1985, and more importantly with the Montreal Protocol two years later, was that governments decided to make a leap of faith: Even in the absence of conclusive evidence that substitutes for CFCs would ever become commercially available, they were prepared to regulate their production in the interests of the global environment. And sure enough, when CFC manufacturers realized that strong international regulation was likely or even inevitable, their financial incentive moved away from blocking progress toward developing alternatives that would position each company profitably in the new markets. There was no silver bullet: Many varying substitutes to CFCs had to be developed for different industrial processes and applications, from the refrigerants in car air-conditioning systems to the solvents used in electronics manufacturing. Some were difficult and expensive at first, but industry innovated and costs inevitably fell.

So the politicians led, and private industry delivered in consequence. And as substitutes to ozone-damaging substances began to become available, so governments were emboldened at subsequent negotiations to tighten up the Montreal Protocol even further and move toward a total worldwide ban on CFCs. There was a ratcheting upward effect, where confidence grew, new commercial incentives began to appear, and a steadily stronger ozone regulation regime came into being than was ever originally envisaged. Looking back, it now seems obvious that the original arguments made by industrial vested interests—that alternatives to CFCs were unavailable or too costly—were flat wrong. Not only did these technical alternatives appear more quickly even than the most fervent promoters had dared to hope, but in many cases they actually saved industry money. But at the time this was far from obvious. What happened was that the leap of faith taken by governments led to a tipping point, which turned the whole dynamic of the ozone issue from one of stasis to one of rapid change.

What is even more extraordinary is that the government that was most ambitious in leading worldwide action on the ozone layer is the long-time bête noire of climate change negotiations, the United States. In contrast, European governments, and especially that of the U.K., fought a long campaign against strong international restrictions on CFCs in order to protect their chemicals industries. They were forced to compromise, however, by the threat of unilateral Congressional action and American trade sanctions against their products. The United States made clear that without a global deal it would enforce a de facto ban through sheer economic muscle. Even more strangely, all this took place during the antiregulation administration of President Ronald Reagan. It was led by the Environmental Protection Agency, but also by strong pressure within the United States Senate. Again, in stark contrast to the climate change issue, the Senate enthusiastically ratified the Montreal Protocol in March 1988, making the United States only the second country to do so.

So what are the lessons for climate change and the other planetary boundaries? First for me is that pessimism leads nowhere. There were many reasons for pessimism even on the eve of the Montreal Protocol: World production of CFCs was still growing rapidly, and massive new investments in productive capacity were planned. Hundreds of billions of dollars of future profits were at stake, and powerful industries were vociferously opposed to meaningful change. Major developing countries were not on board either. In a striking parallel with carbon, China had announced plans to increase CFC production tenfold by 2000. And yet industrialized-country governments were prepared to take a leap in the dark, and a tipping point was thereby crossed. Within just a decade from the signing of the Montreal Protocol, worldwide